


here's the thing (it's you and me)

by KnightFalling



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ben is just a typical high school bully, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Rey and Ben are both seventeen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but NOT between ben and rey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:53:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28432737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightFalling/pseuds/KnightFalling
Summary: Rey Johnson finally sparked with her soulmate!Of course, her soulmate has also just shoved her best friends into a locker and then called her a whore - but you can't have everything, right?---ReyhatesBen Solo but fate has other plans.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 210
Kudos: 606





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> new fic? new fic!! this is about halfway written already so here we gooooo :) 
> 
> before we start...  
>  **IMPORTANT CW:** This is MUCH LESS SOFT than my other fic. Rey and Ben say some pretty terrible, teenage angsty things to each other. They also curse. A lot.
> 
> Rey's foster father grabs her and manhandles her and is generally an abusive prick. it is a plot point. this shit can be triggering so PLEASE take care of yourselves!!! 
> 
> If I need to add any tags, just let me know and I will gladly do so ❤️

Chandrila is different from Jakku in a lot of ways. 

Most of them are good: she has friends for the first time ever, the cafeteria feeds her a peanut butter sandwich for lunch every day even though Plutt never sends her with money, and her teachers look at her with something more than slack-jawed malaise. 

Back at Jakku High, _everyone_ had been poor. Grinding hunger and the universal acknowledgement that none of them were ever getting out had unified all one hundred and fifty-six students in a haze of violent apathy. 

Here in Chandrila, there are three thousand students. Most of them live in big, Georgian-styled houses in affluent neighborhoods with obsessively symmetrical hedges and parents that sometimes show up on the evening news.

Then there’s the Reys. The poor kids who eke in from the far edges of the school district, dressed in clearance clothes and armed with dollar store binders. Class stratification is such an obvious reality that the economics teacher seems genuinely embarrassed every time she tries to teach a lesson. 

And the other students never let Rey forget her place in the hierarchy. That’s the bad part.

Still, though - things are mostly better. Back in Jakku, she wouldn’t be leaning up against Rose’s locker while she watches Poe pull Finn into a headlock for daring to call his car a ‘rustbucket’. She wouldn't be rolling her eyes as she stuffs a bagel pilfered from the breakfast line into her mouth until her cheeks bulge.

"Don’t diss BB!" Poe whisper-shouts, scandalized. BB is Poe’s ancient, hand-me-down convertible. Between the three of them, he’s the only one with a vehicle. "He can hear you! That car drives us everywhere. You owe him!"

Rey snorts, losing a few bits of soggy bagel in the process. "I dunno. Last time I rode with you, BB’s bumper fell off..."

Finn cackles, ignoring the arm around his neck. Poe gasps, clutching dramatically at his heart with his free hand. "Traitor! See if I drive any of you anywhere next time --"

There's a witty response sitting on Rey's carb-laden tongue but before she can get it out, a large, dark mass shoulder-checks Finn and Poe so hard they bounce off the row of lockers. She’s pretty sure she hears Finn's head crack against a combination lock.

Jolting upright, Rey swings around to glare at the mass in question. All 6'2” of him. _Ben motherfucking Solo._ Richest of the rich kids. Prime bully. He seems to have a special vendetta against Rey and her friends for reasons entirely unknown to her.

Right now, he’s smirking at her as Finn and Poe groan and stumble back to their feet. His angular face seems built for smirking. It's a supremely punchable expression for a supremely punchable face.

Rey didn't always think so. Once upon a time, the first time she’d seen him in the halls, she'd flushed and stammered and stared at his long, dark hair and full lips. She'd thought - maybe --

But then he'd opened his mouth. And yeah. Ben Solo is the Supreme Asshole of Chandrila High.

Without a word, he turns and walks away, job done. Rey grits her teeth for restraint. _Don't do it_ , she tells herself. Her hand clenches around the remaining quarter of her bagel. _Do not do it._

She wings the rest of her breakfast at the back of his head.

Rey has always had good aim. It bounces with a satisfying _splat_ and leaves a smear of cream cheese and everything seasoning in his stupidly nice hair.

"Hey _asshole!_ " she shouts, squaring up for a fight. "How about you learn to watch where you're going! Couldn't mommy and daddy afford lessons to teach you how to walk a straight line with those pigeon toes?"

Ben’s shoulders turn rigid and the hallway around them goes silent. Distantly, Rey thinks she hears someone whisper ‘ _oooh shiiiit_ ’ and the crowd mysteriously parts to form a stage around the unfolding drama.

He turns slowly, his face curled into a sneer that shows off his slightly crooked teeth. She marks those down as potential ammo for later, added to the insult list along with his large nose and the ears she knows are hiding under his hair. “What was that, scavenger? Were you trying to talk about _parents?_ ” 

Rey isn’t sure how he found out she’s a foster kid but he has never once let it go. It stings, of course, the way it always does whenever someone brings it up - but Ben can never know that so she shrugs and settles back against the locker in what she hopes is a bored stance. She even lifts one hand to inspect a hangnail. Classic.

“At least someone willingly adopted me.” That someone being Unkar Plutt, who is definitely more attached to the government funding that came along with her than to Rey herself, but he doesn’t need to know that, either. “I bet _your_ parents just foisted you off on nannies because you're too much of a miserable prick for anyone to raise without a paycheck.” 

She goes in for the kill, since she just saw Senator Organa-Solo on the news again last night. “Doesn’t your mum spend most of her time all the way across the country in Hosnia, anyway? Small wonder that she’d never want to spend time with you. Can’t imagine why.” 

Next to her, Poe snorts. Rose just looks exhausted and Finn’s skin has turned chalky with nerves. 

Before Rey can blink, Ben is in her face. He slams a hand against the locker next to her head and it’s so loud and so close that she jumps despite her insistence to never, _ever_ show fear to Ben Motherfucking Solo. 

Except right now, he’s pretty fucking frightening. He’s huge and he’s blocking her exit and violence bleeds off him like a heat wave. “You’re nothing. You come from nothing,” he seethes between his clenched teeth. “You know what I think? I think your mother was a drug addict and a _whore_ and she probably died in a ditch somewhere.” 

Rey sucks in a breath, momentarily stunned by just how _mean_ the words are, but Ben isn’t done yet. He leans in closer, until his nose is only an inch from hers. He’s close enough that she can count the constellation of moles on his face. Close enough to see the ring of lighter color around his irises. “And that’s all you’ll ever be good for, too. Just another whore spreading her legs so people like _me_ keep you off the street.” 

The whole hallway erupts in shouts and jeers. As if through cotton, Rey hears Poe and Rose shouting indignantly but all she can see is Ben’s blazing eyes and the ugly way his mouth has twisted. 

He’s a monster. 

To her shame, tears prickle behind her eyes. Fury and humiliation churn in her gut and then she’s lashing out before she can stop herself.

The loud _CRACK_ of her palm against his right cheek startles her as much as it does him. It sounds like a gunshot across the cacophony but the worst part - the _worst_ , worse than living with Plutt, worse than being five years old and alone and starving and freezing in front of a Costco at 3am - is what happens when her skin touches his. 

Blue sparks. A rapid tingle that sweeps up her arm and down her spine, somewhere between pleasure and pins and needles. 

Ben reels away from her with a shout, clutching at his face. Rey stares down at her hand and the fresh, red stain blooming on her skin. It curls around her palm, around her fingers, and over her wrist like lurid vines. 

“Holy _shit_ ,” Poe whispers, his voice undercutting the shrieking of drama-frenzied teens. And yeah, _holy shit_ just about sums it up because oh, god, that’s a _soulmark_ on her hand. 

Ben Motherfucking Solo is her soulmate. 

The world around her is chaos. All the screaming has attracted the attention of several teachers but their shouted orders sound muffled under the dull roar filling Rey’s ears. 

Her friends close ranks around her. Rose seems to be trying to say something urgent in her ear but Rey can't hear her and her vision has gone all wrong, as if she’s staring down the mouth of a glass bottle.

All she can see is Ben Solo's face. He's still clutching at his cheek as if he expects it to start bleeding and one of his cronies - a lanky ginger she thinks might be named Hux - has a hold of his arm.

Ben stares right back at her, looking ashy, waxen, and a bit like he’s about to vomit all over Hux's expensive oxfords.

For once, she and Ben are on the same page.

Rey has survived a lot of things; abandonment, starvation, a foster dad who likes to slap her and threatens to shave her head if she doesn't obey.

But this - _this_ is more than she can bear.

Rey drops her bag and bolts.

\---

She ends up huddled in a second floor bathroom. It’s inconveniently placed and unpopular, tucked away at the end of the west hallway, so there’s only two other girls washing their hands at the sink when Rey stumbles in. She doesn’t know them (she doesn’t know anyone who isn’t in her classes) but the looks they give her are judgmental enough that Rey knows she looks like shit. 

Well, fuck them, too. And fuck Ben Solo. And fuck Rey’s whole life.

She locks herself in the large stall furthest from the door and just stands there. There’s no lid on the toilet for her to curl up on and cry dramatically the way she wants to, so she just paces the small space and stares blankly at the red mark staining her hand. 

Deep down, Rey has always carried a small, secret kernel of hope that she’d one day find her soulmate. There has never been any chance that she’d be able to afford adding her information to the national soulmate database but she’d thought, maybe, that she’d be lucky enough to find hers organically, without all the expensive DNA tests. 

Maybe, she’d thought, she could finally have someone who actually wanted her. Someone who wouldn’t leave her behind.

A stupid hope, apparently.

She stays in the bathroom for more than an hour. The bell rings to signal the start of class but she ignores it. It rings again. She ignores it. Rey has every intention of staying hidden for the rest of her sad, miserable life. 

It occurs to her, about forty minutes in, that there’s a weird feeling in her chest. It’s like a small tug on her ribs or the swivel of a compass needle. It takes her another half hour to realize what it is; she can _feel_ Ben, like a detached limb, in relation to herself. 

She frowns and rubs at her sternum. Weird. He should be in class (or locked in the office, probably, for being a _dick_ ) but it feels like he’s moving, up the stairs and closer -- 

Oh, shit.

The bathroom door smacks open and Rey, driven by instinctive panic, scrambles up onto the toilet seat to hide her feet. Balanced precariously and hunched so that her head doesn’t peek above the stall, she holds her breath and listens. 

Oh, god, this is so dumb. What is she doing? 

Awkward silence descends, in which Rey _knows_ Ben is standing less than six feet away and she knows that _he_ knows that she’s hiding in a grimy bathroom stall to avoid him. 

“Miss Johnson,” comes a voice that is definitely not Ben Solo’s. 

Rey startles so abruptly that she slips off the toilet and nearly ends up with her old, ragged converse soaked in nasty water. It is only by frantic teetering and slamming - loudly - into the stall wall that she avoids that particular humiliation. 

Instead, she has to suffer the indignity of hearing that unknown voice chuckling at her. Whatever. Rey squares her jaw and opens the door. “What do you _want_ \--” 

Ben is there, exactly as she’d known he would be. Standing in all black, looking sour and sullen as he watches her with dark, angry eyes. He looks a little like he wants to strangle her but she can only stare now that she can actually see his soulmark. It’s a harsh line that bisects the right side of his face, from his brow all the way down to his jaw. It looks red and raw and Rey thinks she should probably feel a little bad about it being on his face since it's permanent and all but she just doesn’t. He deserves it. 

It takes longer than she wants to admit to drag her eyes away from her mark on him. She finally looks at the man next to him, though - at the unknown voice that had said her name… 

“Mr. Skywalker?” she sputters, alarmed to find Chandrila High’s principal standing beside Ben under the buzzing fluorescent light of the girl’s bathroom. He looks amused, his baby blue eyes twinkling and his lips curled into a shit-eating grin under his bushy beard. 

She wouldn’t recognize him as the head of the most well-funded public school in the entire Republic if she hadn’t already met him while transferring in. The man isn’t even wearing a suit. He’s wearing _birkenstocks_.

“You could have picked a better hiding spot,” Mr. Skywalker drawls. “The library, maybe. Hell, there’s a door to a hidden stairwell just fifty feet down the hallway. You can jimmy open the lock with your student ID if you bend it.” 

Rey’s mouth hangs open. How is she supposed to respond to that? Ben just stands there looking like he’s smelled something nasty, making him exactly zero help at all in predicting what this whole mess is about. 

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Rey says, shoulders curling inwards. “I was defending myself.” 

Ben sucks in a sharp breath, inevitably preparing to hurl some sort of insult in her general direction, but Mr. Skywalker slaps a hand over his mouth. “I’m sure you were,” the principal says. “Ben has that effect on people.” 

Rey can’t help but shoot a smug little grin at her awful soulmate. Sweet, sweet vindication. 

“ _But_ ,” Mr. Skywalker continues firmly and Rey’s heart drops into the vicinity of her stomach, “you and young Ben here are soulmates. Aside from you two having a great many things to talk about -” he pauses to raise a brow when Rey scoffs “- you’ll both need to file your information with the Registry within forty-eight hours. If you don’t, your parents can be hit with a fine of up to --” 

Ben yanks his head away specifically so he can sneer, “She doesn’t even _have_ parents.” 

“Fuck you, Solo.” 

He flips her off. If she were closer, she would kick him in the shin. 

Mr. Skywalker heaves a sigh and looks towards the ceiling as if praying for patience. “I’m not paid enough for this,” he mutters. “Both of you, come with me.” 

\---

Rey finds herself in the cluttered principal's office, seated in one of two uncomfortable, creaking plastic chairs. Ben sits in the other. Rey had made a point of scooting hers several inches away and even now, she is barely perched at the extreme edge of her seat, as far from her soulmate as possible.

Mr. Skywalker keeps sipping on some sort of green smoothie he'd pulled from a mini-fridge under his desk and Rey kind of already wants to scream before any of them have managed to say a single word.

Silently, the principal pushes two pamphlets across his desk, one for each of them. It's followed by another long _sluuurp_ at his straw.

Her teeth grind together. Rey snaps up the pamphlet and flips it over to look at the front panel. A teenage couple holds hands in a sunny field of flowers, their faces set in a rictus of wide, terrifying smiles. Cute, matching soulmarks in powder blue wind around their joined hands. She’s pretty sure she's seen the same photo on shutterstock before.

 _CONGRATULATIONS!_ the pamphlet decrees in a bubbly, cartoon font. All caps, of course. _SO YOU'VE JUST FOUND YOUR SOULMATE…_

Nope. No. With deliberate calm, Rey sets the pamphlet back on Mr. Skywalker's desk. From the corner of her eye, she spots Ben crushing his into a tiny, crinkled ball.

"Well, _I_ thought they were helpful," Mr. Skywalker mutters. He finally sets aside the smoothie and leans back in his chair to steeple his fingers in front of his lips. “Fine. We’ll go over the hard part, first. You two better get used to each other. Soulmates need frequent physical contact --” 

“ _What_.” 

“-- or else you’ll suffer from what they call separation sickness.” 

“What kind of ‘physical contact’?” Ben demands at exactly the same time Rey squeaks out, “How frequently is _frequent?_ ” 

“Holding hands. Hugging.” Mr. Skywalker clears his throat. “Among other things. Every sixteen hours or so for now. Eventually, you’ll be able to spend a week or two apart.”

This has to be a nightmare. Rey digs her fingers into her knee until her knuckles blanche white but nothing changes. She’s still sitting next to Ben Solo and she’s still expected to _hug_ him _every day_ for the _rest of her life_. 

“No,” Rey blurts out, chin tilting defiantly. “I won’t do it. I’d rather be sick.” 

Ben still looks like he wants to murder her but that’s nothing new. Mr. Skywalker groans and drags a hand down his face. “Listen, kid, I’m not a counselor. Just read the damn pamphlets if you want to know the consequences. I just need you to fill out some paperwork.” 

The paperwork, as it turns out, is just as bad as ‘the hard part’. Rey reads over each page with shaking hands, the edges bent and crumpling under the force of her grip.

As far as the government is concerned, she and Ben are now legally one person. As of today, Ben now has limited power of attorney over all of Rey’s affairs - in the event that she is incapacitated, the authorities will look to _him_ first. 

He might not be worse than Plutt but it’s pretty close.

“I’m not signing this,” Rey says numbly. “I don’t agree to any of it.” 

Mr. Skywalker heaves a throaty sigh that has Rey crumpling in on herself. She hates that sound; the one that says the adults in her life are already sick of her. That she’s a burden. Annoying. 

“It isn’t about agreeing,” Mr. Skywalker says. “It’s already a done deal, Rey. Blame nature or fate or whatever makes you feel better.” 

And that’s it. Rey’s protests die an embarrassed death but she stays stubbornly silent as she scribbles something that looks kind of like her name at the bottom of the page. Beside her, Ben does the same and she’s surprised, somehow, that he isn’t equally outraged. He hasn’t said _anything_. Rey doesn’t trust it. 

“You’ll need a parent to sign, too,” Mr. Skywalker says and Rey’s mouth goes dry. “Bring it back tomorrow and I’ll file all the paperwork with the Registry for you.” 

Her heart drops into her stomach. Blood rushes out of her face and it feels terribly as if it all pools in the notch of her collarbone. Her pulse pounds. She has to tell Plutt? She has to tell her shitty foster father that she has a soulmate and he’s going to --

“Thanks,” she says, her voice shamefully breaking over the word. She wonders, in a vaguely disassociated sort of way, what would happen if she walked out of the school and just _kept_ walking. How long would it take for anyone to notice she’s missing? 

“Why don’t you two spend next period in the library? You can talk and --” 

“No,” Rey says, standing abruptly. She gathers the paperwork and snatches up the pamphlet, gracelessly stuffing it all in the pocket of her hoodie. “I’d rather go back to class.” 

She’s halfway out the door before either of them can say anything. She thinks she sees Ben lurch to his feet from the corner of her eye. “Wait, scavenger -” 

“Fuck _off_ , Solo.” She doesn’t wait.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a little blown away by the response to this and I can only hope it doesn't disappoint!
> 
> **CW: we meet plutt in this chapter. he is both physically and emotionally abusive.**

Rey doesn’t go back to class. It’s not like it  _ really _ matters. Her grades are kind of shit anyway and it’s not like she’ll ever be able to afford to go to college.

She doesn’t feel guilty at all about sneaking past a patrolling hall monitor and out an unattended side door. She crosses the green, manicured field at the front of the school, skirts past the stonework sign with CHANDRILA HIGH printed in elegant gold lettering, and slouches down the sidewalk.

It’ll take her an hour to walk back to Plutt’s but Rey would rather be anywhere but ‘home’ right now.

So, she walks. Chandrila is a big city and no one cares about a lone teenage girl wandering by herself and skipping class. Rey has no real destination in mind but a little desert orphan like her will never not be amazed by all the people and colors. There are green boulevards and neon signs and women with purple hair. 

Jakku had only ever been beige and sand.

If she focuses enough on the city around her, she doesn’t have to think of the tingling, searing red mark on her hand. She doesn’t have to consider the pull she still feels back towards the school.

She walks and walks until her legs ache and the sun has moved across the sky. When it seems late enough that she can’t avoid it any longer, she cuts across a busy intersection and trudges towards the industrial district 

By her estimate, she’s about an hour late. Her foster father will be pissed. She’s counting on that, though - if he’s mad, he won’t care about what he’s signing. She might get a cuff upside the head for it but she’s used to that.

Plutt’s scrapyard is in a bad neighborhood, tucked in between two derelict warehouses and ringed by a twelve foot, razor wire fence. Plutt owns the crumbling brick office building, the apartment above it, and two acres of property behind, ninety percent of which is packed several stories high with old metal scrap. 

From what Rey can tell, Plutt owns several similar sites across the Republic. She’s not really sure why they moved here from the one in Jakku but she has also learned not to ask too many questions. 

Rey unlocks the gate and pauses to steel herself before walking into the office. It smells like engine oil and body odor, courtesy of her foster father sitting behind the chipped particle board counter. The little bell on the door jingles when she opens it and Plutt looks up, his beady eyes already narrowed. 

"You’re late," he grunts before going back to counting cash from the register - probably double checking that she hasn’t skimmed any off the top yesterday.

Not that she would. She learned her lesson after the last time.

"Bus got caught in traffic," she lies easily. The lies keep coming, casual and airy, even though her heart feels like it might break through her ribs. "I need you to sign something. Some paperwork shit for the school."

Her hand shakes as she slides the wrinkled soulmate registry form across the counter. With any luck, he won’t even read it. Plutt hates reading. 

To her horror, he slides the paper in front of him with meticulous focus. 

“School called,” he mentions casually, gripping the form in a meaty, sweaty fist and bringing it close to his face. “Said you skipped class today. What did I tell you about that shit?” 

Rey’s mouth goes dry and she says nothing. Her stomach churns. He never answers his phone so why,  _ why _ did he decide to pick up, today of all days?

“You want some fucking case worker sniffing around again? You wanna spend the next year in a group home before they throw you out on the streets on your birthday?” 

She shakes her head silently. 

Plutt grunts and she thinks, desperately, that maybe the worst has passed. Maybe he’ll just sign the goddamn paper and she can go to her room and spend the rest of the night huddled in her bed. 

Instead, one of his hands snaps out and grabs her bicep. He squeezes hard enough to press tendon to bone and Rey hisses, yanking and clawing at his fingers like a feral thing. 

He ignores her, reading the paper clutched in his free hand. His expression, always piggish and sour, warps into something between fury and disbelief. “ _ You _ have a soulmate? Better hope he has low standards, girl.” 

Rey refuses to give him the satisfaction of crying or whimpering or shouting. She grits her teeth and ignores the aching tingles that start in her elbow as he pinches a nerve in her arm. 

She already  _ knows _ she’s not much of a catch. He’s told her as much every day since she was eight. Her own parents didn’t even want her. Plutt sure doesn’t. Why would her soulmate? 

He gives her a bone-rattling shake before releasing her. The force of it is enough to send Rey stumbling into the counter and her hipbone bangs against the sharp corner.

"You're mine until you turn eighteen. Don't get knocked up before then."

Finally,  _ finally _ , Plutt signs the paper. He holds it out and Rey snatches it from him so quickly that it tears a quarter of the way through.

She turns to slink off to her room and lick her wounds in peace but Plutt isn't done yet. He calls over his shoulder, "Remember, girl, if you want to spend time with your soulmate, you'll have to earn it."

Rey thinks of the twenty hours a week she already spends working in his chop shop on top of school and homework. She never sees a dime for her labors, of course.

She's too exhausted to argue or explain that spending time with her soulmate is the last thing she wants to do.

Without another word, Rey scurries up the creaking steps that lead to the musty two bedroom apartment they share. She has to change her clothes and then get to work in the yard before Plutt comes hunting for her.

She wishes she could just curl up under her covers and hide from the world for awhile.

That's all she wants.

\---

Rey spends the majority of the night tossing and turning in her narrow, lumpy bed. She tries to keep her eyes closed but inevitably, she always finds herself staring at her hand in the dim, filtered light of the street lamp just outside her window. The mark is still vivid red and it looks angry, raw around the edges. 

It’s more like a scar than anything. Most soulmarks she’s seen on TV and on the other kids at school are soft colors. Blue is the most common, followed by green, and then yellow. They’re almost always on the hand or arm, sparking for the first time when soulmates touch platonically in greeting.

She thinks about the mark on Ben’s face and nausea roils in her belly. Why couldn’t they have been normal? Why did he have to be such an asshole? For the rest of his life, people are going to look at his face and know that the way they met was  _ wrong _ . 

Her brain catches at the thought of Ben like a loose thread in a sweater, snagging and tangling up. She thinks about him, standing nose to nose with her. She thinks about his eyes. She thinks about his full lips twisting around the word  _ scavenger _ .

She thinks, briefly, hardly for a second, barely at all, of the way he always wears t-shirts that are a little too tight across his broad chest. The boy plays far too much hockey. 

Rey flushes and feels suddenly too hot under her threadbare blanket. She casts about desperately for a distraction.  _ Anything _ would be better than thinking about the muscles that may or may not be hiding under her bully’s clothes.

The pamphlet Mr. Skywalker had given her sits on the milk crate serving as her nightstand, crumpled up into an accusatory ball. There might be answers in there, couched in all the overly cheerful, state-approved language but that would actually involve acknowledging her current predicament. 

With a resigned groan, Rey sits up and flicks on the lone bare-bulb lamp in her room before grabbing the cursed pamphlet. She smooths out the crumpled paper with perfunctory motions and takes far more vengeful pleasure than she probably should when she sees that the cheery couple on the cover have been creased nearly beyond recognition. 

She flips it open. The intro paragraph is tame enough, despite using far, far too many exclamation marks. 

“ _ What an exciting time!” _ the first sentence says in italics. “ _ You’ve found the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with! _ ” 

Gag. 

“ _ You should consider yourselves lucky! After all, most people have to wait decades before finding their match! High School presents unique challenges to young soulmates and it’s important to reach out to parents or other trusted adults when you feel overwhelmed… _ ” 

Well, that’s certainly not going to happen. Rey skims the rest of the paragraph since it’s not exactly relevant to her situation and skips down to the bulleted list below. 

“ _ Everything you’re feeling is normal! A fresh bond can result in a lot of big, confusing emotions and sensations. Good thing you have a partner who always understands you! _

“ _ Physical contact is the most important part of the bonding process! Hugging, kissing, cuddling and yes, even sex, are all part of the soulbond. Be sure to talk to your parent, guardian, or trusted adult about safe sex options! _ ” 

Rey actually laughs aloud at that.  _ Ha _ . As if. She wouldn’t let  _ Ben Motherfucking Solo _ near her panties if he were the last penis-owner on earth. She’s going to invest in a chastity belt. 

Even if just  _ thinking _ about Ben and sex in the same sentence makes her squirm a little beneath her blankets. Her body is just being… rude. 

“ _ The soulbond comes with several unique abilities that scientists haven’t yet been able to explain! You share a soul, after all!  _

_ Some pairs may find themselves developing additional marks. This is completely normal! These are most often in response to your partner experiencing physical pain or injury. Consider them a warning that your partner needs you! _

_ As the bond grows and develops, you will learn to feel what your partner is feeling and, sometimes, communicate across great distances! _ ”

That sounds terrible. Rey would like to do exactly zero of that with Ben. 

“ _ Freshly sparked soulmates, especially young pairs, are prone to separation sickness. Symptoms include fatigue, weakness, dizziness, nausea, and more. If you experience any discomfort,  _ _ immediately _ _ seek your soulmate. Symptoms usually occur 16-20 hours after last physical contact. Prolonged separation can result in chronic illness. Do not hesitate! If you feel something, do something!  _

_ “Remember, it is against federal law to separate a soulbonded pair! If a parent, guardian, or authority figure attempts to remove you from your soulmate, please call…. _ ” 

Rey stares at the hotline number listed, wondering what they’d think of Plutt’s edict that she work in order to see her soulmate. What if they found out  _ she _ was the one who preferred the separation? Was that also a federal offense? 

She isn’t opposed to a bit of felony if it means avoiding Ben. 

Her ancient, cracked cell phone reads around 12am (along with notifications for about one millions texts from her friends that she has been and will continue to ignore). That means it’s been just about sixteen hours since she slapped Ben. 

The bond must consider that  _ physical contact _ because she feels  _ just fine, thank you _ . No dizziness or shaking. A little flushed and restless maybe, but who wouldn’t be? 

Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe she’d just slapped Ben a lot harder than she’d thought and left weird marks on them both. There’s no way he’s her soulmate and if she’s not feeling sick, that just proves it. Right? 

It’s a comforting thought. Rey ignores the way her gut churns and flings the useless pamphlet aside so she can curl up under her sparse blanket again. Her room is cold.  _ She’s _ cold. 

\---

Rey wakes up two hours later and she is  dying . She has to be. She's drenched in sweat, her hair plastered to her face and her clothes soaked through. There’s a pressure on her chest and her stomach roils and -- 

She hunches over the side of her bed and dry heaves onto the floor. Nothing comes up but spit and a mouthful of bile. Right. She hadn’t eaten lunch or dinner yesterday and she’d thrown that precious chunk of her bagel at Ben’s head. 

Worth it. 

When she tries to stand, desperate for a glass of water, her legs nearly collapse under her. 

_ Separation sickness _ , she thinks vaguely.  _ Huh _ . 

It feels like the time she’d stolen a bottle of Plutt’s shitty vodka from the freezer. It had been a mistake she only made once - for multiple reasons. 

‘ _ Immediately seek your soulmate’ _ the pamphlet had said but Rey can’t very well do that, now can she? She doesn’t have his phone number and who knows how far away he lives.

Besides, insists a part of her that is as hard and sandblasted as Jakku scrap, she’d rather  _ die _ than touch Ben Solo. 

Her brain scrambles around erratically and tries to stick to images of his hands, of touching him, of his hair, and he’d be so  _ warm _ and strong and safe if she just curled up in his -- 

Rey bares her teeth against a rush of prickling pain that starts at her scalp and washes like a wave down her body. 

“Fuck  _ all _ of this,” she groans, standing through the sheer force of stubborn willpower. She grits her teeth and clings to the wall as she shuffles to the kitchen. Water and ibuprofen. Lots of ibuprofen. She’s learned that she can take like five or six of the little orange pills at a time before her stomach starts to hurt.  That will probably help. 

\---

The ibuprofen  does help. It’s enough for her to get back to sleep and, come morning, drag herself from her bed on leaden feet. 

Her only solace in all this is that Ben must feel just as bad as she does. Ha. The thought of his pale and sweaty and weak is… 

Not really as satisfying as she’d thought it would be, actually. God dammit. 

“You look like shit,” Plutt says immediately when she enters the kitchen. “Guess not even your soulmate wanted to touch you, huh?” 

It stings but Rey is used to it. She grunts and makes herself coffee in a paper travel mug. Fuck Plutt.  _ She’s _ the one who doesn’t want to touch her soulmate.

Even if Ben has definitely called her  dirty before. “ _ Dirty scavenger _ ,” she distinctly remembers the sound of his voice shouting across the hall at her. “ _ You know we have water around here for you to bathe in sometimes, right?” _

As if it’s her fault she’s always covered in grease and rust. 

She downs another mouthful of orange pills when Plutt isn’t looking and takes her coffee with her out the door. She has to walk ten minutes down to the street corner for the bus to pick her up since they won’t come all the way down the road just for her. 

Every step hurts. Everything hurts. She kind of wants to just lie down on the sidewalk and stop moving. 

She makes it to the corner, where she leans up against a crumbling abandoned warehouse until the bus trundles to a stop next to her. It’s probably a good thing that Plutt never let her fix up one of the scrappers in the yard to drive herself to and from school every day - she wouldn’t trust herself behind the wheel right now. 

The bus is warm, at least. There are only a few other students already seated; they whisper to each other as Rey walks past them but she’s too exhausted to worry about whatever gossip the rumor mill has churned up. She flops down in an empty seat towards the back and lets her head fall backwards. 

She still hides her hand in her pocket, though. No reason to let them gawk. 

Rey had strongly considered playing hooky today. She doesn’t want to even  risk a run-in with Ben, not when her mind has been playing a constant, whiny loop of his hands, face, hair,  _ Ben, Ben, Ben _ since last night. 

The world hasn’t given her much, but Rey still has a scrap of dignity left. She’s not going to forgive him just because fate or destiny or biology or  _ whatever _ says so. He’s a nasty, horrible boy and that’s it. 

But unless she gets an early emancipation from Plutt (not likely), then she is stuck at Chandrila for the foreseeable future. If she doesn’t go to school, the case worker will show up. She’d be surprised if one doesn’t show up anyway, once Mr. Skywalker files the sweaty, half-torn paperwork Rey has stuffed in her pocket. 

They’re all going to try and congratulate her. Maybe try to convince her to marry Ben so the state no longer has to be responsible for her. A neat little happy story for them to slap a bow on and publicize.  _ Poor orphan girl finds rich soulmate! If she can do it, you can too! _

Rey staggers off the bus, feeling jaded and motion sick. She’s not sure how she’s going to get through class today but she’s made it through worse. 

The paved entryway leading into the front doors is already packed solid with students streaming into the school. Rey shuffles along with the herd, sipping at her coffee in the hopes that it might help, and she’s so focused on not tripping over her own feet that she doesn’t notice the compass needle in her chest spinning wildly, coming closer and closer -- 

Something large and solid just, like,  _ slams _ into her. Rey’s feet come right off the ground and she screeches, flailing wildly as she tries to escape. Her coffee bounces sadly off the ground with a splash. 

Those are  _ arms _ wrapped tight around her, squeezing the air from her lungs. That’s a hard chest her face is squished against, her nose buried in soft jersey knit. 

“What the  _ fuck _ , scavenger,” Ben Solo growls into her ear. 

And Rey’s whole body goes pliant. Her aching muscles, her sore skin, the exhaustion, the weight on her chest… It all eases out of her with a sigh. It feels so good that Rey droops in his arms and nuzzles her nose against the pronounced pecs in front of her face. 

She didn’t realize how much she’d been hurting until it stopped.

But then reality sets in. Rey tenses like she’s been hit with a taser and then begins to struggle in earnest, despite the fact that her arms are pinned beneath his. He squeezes her tighter against him and, if she were more naive, she’d assume it was a desperate hug instead of whatever this - this  _ assault _ is. 

“Get off of me, asshole!” 

Ben grunts and drops her all at once. She stumbles and nearly trips over her own feet but he catches her arm, holding her upright. 

Now that she’s not smushed up against his chest, she realizes that he looks like shit, too. Dark circles ring his eyes and there’s a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead. Even his signature black hair, usually styled in perfect waves, looks limp and lifeless. 

“You walked away and didn’t tell me how to reach you,” Ben hisses, shaking her arm. “I drove halfway around the damn city trying to find you but all I found was a junkyard. Where  _ were _ you?” 

“None of your business, Solo.” 

She tries to yank herself out of his grip but his giant ass hand feels like a statue around her bicep, digging into the bruises Plutt left the night before. Rey is  _ really _ sick of men grabbing her. 

When she winces, Ben flinches away as if she’s burned him. 

“Your arm,” he says. “And your hip. What happened? Yesterday - I felt --” 

“It’s  _ nothing _ .” 

Ben’s hand lingers in the air between them, his fingers flexing. His jaw moves back and forth, lips pursing and rolling over his teeth. He looks like he wants to say something but he must realize that it’s not a good idea. 

“My unc-- the principal wants us to go see him before class starts.” 

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll meet you there.” 

It’s been near on twenty-four hours since Rey has put anything in her stomach besides coffee. She never gets to eat breakfast at home if Plutt is in the kitchen - he hates it when she takes too much food from the fridge. 

She’s not going to miss her cafeteria bagel because of Ben. 

Instead of taking the hint and getting the fuck out of her face, Ben just stands there like an overgrown scarecrow. Staring at her. The mark on his face is livid red and she’s spitefully happy that he can’t cover it up without a mask. She’s sure everyone is going to be staring at him today. 

Whatever. Since he’s not inclined to leave, Rey shoves past him and follows the tailend of the crowd squeezing through the front doors. It doesn’t take her long to realize he’s following her. His heavy footsteps and the looming shadow he casts over her make it obvious. 

“Go away,” she snaps over her shoulder without turning to look at him. “I have to stop at the cafeteria first. I’m sure you can find the office all on your own. Why are you following me?” 

“You’re my soulmate.” He sounds much closer than she’d realized, practically plastered against her back and leaning down to mutter in her ear. 

That’s it. Rey grinds to a halt, letting him slam into her back as she locks her legs up like a small wheel chock in front of a pickup. She whips around and shoves his chest, trying to push him away, but he’s too damn  _ big _ for her to move. “Yeah? You’re also a massive asshole and I want nothing to do with you. Goodbye.” 

Ben looks flummoxed. Honest to god baffled. But that’s not Rey’s problem so she turns and tries to walk away again. 

He follows her. Because of course he does. “But - you - we’re supposed to --” 

“You have made my life miserable for six months. Did you think I was just going to let you dip your dick in it because of this fucking mark?” She holds her hand up in a clenched fist to show off the bright red swirls. “Sorry. Not interested. Find another ‘ _ whore’ _ to spread her legs for you.” 

Oh. Oh no. That’s a bad thought. Everything in her rebels violently even as she says the words, her breathing picking up into panicked gasps. She won’t take it back, though. She  _ won’t _ . If he finds some other girl - probably pretty and sweet and rich - to fuck, then maybe he’ll finally leave her alone. 

Then she and Ben can just shake hands once a day and go about their separate lives. It will be fine. That sounds… Fine. 

Ben doesn’t say anything and when she finally risks a glance over her shoulder, he’s gone. 

Everything is fine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra long chapter today because I don't feel like breaking it up :)

Rey makes it two steps into the cafeteria before she’s assaulted once again. Rose appears out of nowhere, colliding with Rey’s side and curling both arms around one of hers. “ _ Oh my god, Rey, _ ” she stage whispers with great intensity. “Are you serious? You haven’t answered any of our texts!” 

Even after all these months, Rey isn’t quite used to people touching her. She shies away before she catches herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really want to talk about it,” she whispers back stiffly and hopes she doesn’t sound too hostile. 

“Didn’t want to -- Rey, you found your soulmate!” 

“Yeah. That’s the problem.” 

Rose sighs and squeezes Rey’s arm a little tighter. “I know. I’m so sorry. This is supposed to be one of the best moments of your life and --” 

“I  _ know _ , Rose. I know. I really, really don’t want to talk about it. Please.” 

Although her friend is practically vibrating with curiosity, Rose manages to bite back the inevitable questions.

Rey’s seen it before in movies and in the halls of Chandrila: a newly sparked teenager giggling and gushing to their friends about their new soulmate. It’s like some sort of right of passage or tradition. 

Of course she doesn’t get to have that, either. 

Poe and Finn are waiting for her at their usual morning table, bagel and Snapple already in hand. Her backpack from the day before sits on the table between them. Both boys look troubled, deep furrows in their brows. 

Finn wordlessly hands her the bagel and Rey immediately tears into it, her stomach growling ferociously. Poe also says nothing as he kicks out a chair for her to sit and she feels defensive, as if she’s about to go on trial. 

It is with no small amount of relief that she shakes her head. “M’gotta go to Mr. Skywalker’s office,” she says around a bulging mouthful of bread as she begins the slow process of extricating herself from Rose’s hold and edging towards the door.

“Do we have to be nice to Ben, now?” Poe asks suddenly, leaning forward on his knees to pin Rey with a dark stare. 

She nearly chokes on her bagel when she snorts. As if. “No. He’s still a dick.” 

“Even if he’s your soulmate?” 

“Only in name. Trip him if you see him in the hall.” 

Poe’s grin is wicked and he raises his hand for a high five as she walks past. 

Maybe she’ll make it through this after all. 

\---

Rey slinks into Mr. Skywalker’s office like she’s trying to hide, despite the secretary smiling at her and waving her through the reception area. 

The office door is closed and Rey raises her hand to knock before she realizes she can hear a heated exchange going on from the other side. 

“ _... only person with a soulmate who hates you. How do you think you’re going to convince her? _ ” 

“ _ Fuck you, Uncle Luke. _ ” 

There’s a screech like a chair being shoved across the floor and then the sound of stomping footsteps pacing back and forth through the room. Rey squares her jaw and knocks, not caring to overhear anything else. 

So Mr. Skywalker is Ben’s uncle. She shouldn’t be surprised. Isn’t that just her luck? She has no one in her corner but Ben’s  _ whole _ family has the power to destroy her entire life if she upsets their son. Talk about privilege. 

The door swings open and Ben stands on the other side, his chest heaving as if he’s just run ten miles. Rey glares at him until he moves aside. 

“Glad to see you two are getting along,” Mr. Skywalker drawls, reclined back in his fancy desk chair with another of those awful green smoothies in hand. “Did you get that paper signed?” 

Rey pulls the crumpled, torn page from her pocket and shoves it at him. “Here.” 

Mr. Skywalker raises a brow at the damage that has managed to occur overnight and delicately takes it from her hand, as if that’s going to do it any favors at this point. 

Silence hangs heavy in the room. Ben isn’t sitting down and Rey doesn’t want to sit either because that would imply that this is a real ' meeting' and not just a paper drop-off so she can immediately sprint back to class. 

“Ben, give me a moment alone with Miss Johnson, please.” 

Rey’s heart sinks. Oh no. 

“No. She’s my --” 

“Ben.” 

He turns and leaves, slamming the door behind him and leaving her alone with Mr. Skywalker. She squeezes her hands into shaking fists, tight enough that her nails dig marks into her palms. 

“Miss Johnson,” the principal begins, pinning her in place with those too blue eyes. “I’m too old to bullshit you so let’s get right to it. What is your home life like?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Your home life. It says in your file that you live with a foster father. That seems to be common knowledge around school.” 

Rey grits her teeth together, feeling hunted. Like she’s going to crawl out of her own skin. “That’s right.” 

"Ben’s mother called me last night because she was concerned about a few things he told her. Were you aware he went looking for you, when the separation sickness began?” 

“Yes.” 

“And that the pull of your bond brought him to a junkyard?” 

“My foster father owns  _ Plutt Scrap Metal & Recycling. _ We live in an apartment above the office.” 

“Mm. And did you know soulmates know when their other half is injured or in pain?” 

Her arm and hip twinge, bruised purple and black from Plutt’s rough treatment, but she meets Mr. Skywalker’s eyes steadily. She is very good at lying to adults, even when she’s panicking on the inside. “No.” 

The principal sips at his smoothie and runs his fingers down his beard in contemplation. “Miss Johnson. Rey. There are legal loopholes built around soulmates. I’m sure you know that. You also know his mother is a senator. If you don’t feel safe at home, Ben and his parents can petition for custody --” 

“No!” Rey blurts. “Absolutely not. Plutt - my foster dad - he’s  _ fine _ . We’re fine. I’ve been with him for years.” 

She hates Unkar Plutt with every fiber of her being but she’d rather have the devil she knows than whatever Ben Motherfucking Solo has in store for her. At least the worst Plutt can do is beat her and starve her. Ben can do so much worse. 

Mr. Skywalker looks like he doesn’t believe her but it isn’t the tired, resigned way that her case workers never believe her.  _ They _ are too burnt out from handling hundreds of cases just like hers and girls in homes far worse than Plutt’s. They won’t argue with her when there are so many others ready and willing to admit the truth and accept help. 

No, the principal of Chandrila High looks like he sees far too much despite his birkenstocks, frayed cardigan, and shitty smoothie. 

“Ben is a monster,” Rey spits and she is mortified to find her eyes burning and welling up with tears. “And he thinks I’m a dirty, orphan scavenger. Why would I ever want to go anywhere with him?” 

“I know this is hard for you but he  _ is _ your soulmate.”

Rey remains mulishly silent. It might be true but she doesn’t have to say it out loud. 

“Now, both of you look like shit and Ben tells me you went a full twenty-four hours without contact?”

She stubbornly looks away and Mr. Skywalker heaves another aggrieved sigh. 

“You’re going to kill yourselves at this rate and I don’t want to have to explain that to my sister.” He stands up, leaving his hideous green drink on the desk. “You’re both going to be useless in class today. Consider this an excused absence. Here’s what’s going to happen: instead of scurrying out of a side door and running away like a desert mouse, you and Ben are going to find somewhere quiet to talk.” 

Great, so she has to listen to him insult her some more. 

“And if Ben tries to shove you or your friends into any more lockers, you’re going to tell me. His mother and I will handle it. Understand?” 

Rey nods even though she doesn’t believe him. They’ll ‘handle it’, sure. Just like they’ve  _ handled _ him bullying her for the last six months. She’d agree to pretty much anything, though, if it meant getting out of this room before he comes up with more ways to ruin her life. 

“Go on, then. I’m sure Ben is waiting out there with his ear pressed to the door.” 

Without so much as bothering with pleasantries, Rey swivels on her heel and throws the door open. Sure enough, Ben almost falls into her from where he’d been leaning against it but she neatly steps aside and doesn’t bother trying to help him. 

She sweeps past him, her shoulders hunched around her ears as she power walks through the reception area. 

“ _ Talking _ , Miss Johnson!” Mr. Skywalker shouts at her back and she resists a very strong urge to flip him off. That would probably get her detention at the very least, although she's starting to suspect there's a strong possibility that the principal would just laugh at her, instead. 

“I’m getting tired of you running away from me,” Ben snaps at her heel. Like an overgrown chihuahua, she thinks viciously.

“And I’m tired of you being an unrelenting dick but it looks like neither of us gets what we want.” 

Rey hears him huff out a snort like an angry bull and she can already imagine what his face looks like without bothering to check over her shoulder. Sneering disgust and hatred, exactly the same expression he’s had every single time he’s seen her over the last few months. 

She has no idea where she’s going but she just keeps storming down the empty halls of the school. If nothing else, it gives her a sense of vengeful, gleeful satisfaction to know he has to follow her in circles. 

“You know, I tried being nice to you once,” Ben snaps and he sounds almost like he’s  hurt . Which is impossible, of course. Ben Solo is nothing but hateful and possesses an inner world as shallow as a mud puddle in Jakku. She scoffs, disbelieving. “I tried to warn you about your ‘ _ friends’ _ \--” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rey has never heard such bullshit in her life. She remembers the conversation he’s referring to.  _ Conversation _ , of course, is a word that requires more air quotes than she has fingers. 

She’d been at the school less than three days at the time and she’d been so, _so_ happy to actually have friends. She’d never had friends at Jakku. Finn, Poe, and Rose had flocked around her from the moment they’d seen her holding her tray alone in the cafeteria, overwhelmed and terrified in this giant, new school. They were the only reason her first day hadn’t been a total trainwreck. 

And then Ben. Ben  _ Motherfucking _ Solo. He’d approached her at her locker, leaning his giant self against the wall next to her and peering down at her face. She remembers blushing and thinking, ‘ _ oh no _ ’ because he’d been so pretty and tall and large and paying attention to her. And then he’d opened his mouth. 

“You told me my friends were trash,” Rey reminds Ben in the flattest voice she can manage. “Followed by, and I quote, ‘ _ You’re nothing here, junkrat. Better find more important people to cling to.’ _ ” 

It is supremely satisfying to throw his words back in his face right now. 

“And you told me to go sodomize myself with a hockey stick,” Ben drawls. “I was  _ trying _ to tell you I wanted to be friends.” 

At that, Rey actually stops walking. Because wow.  _ Wow _ . “That doesn’t excuse any of the other shit you’ve said to me since then. If you wanted to be friends, you could have tried being nice!” 

“I didn’t know you were my soulmate!” 

“That shouldn’t matter! Holy shit, Solo, if that’s how you treat people, then I want  _ nothing to do with you! _ ” 

She hadn’t noticed her steady increase in volume until the words echo back to her through the empty hallways. She’s sure students and teachers in the adjoining classrooms must hear her shouting but no one comes to check on them - she wonders if Mr. Skywalker has warned the faculty to leave them to it. 

Ben is quiet for long enough that Rey starts to wonder if he’s walked off. But no, the only sound in the hall is her rapid, ragged breathing and she would have heard his stomping footsteps as he left.

“You’re my soulmate,” Ben repeats in a voice that sounds so small. “You can’t ignore me.” 

There’s a twinge in her chest and it takes Rey a full thirty seconds to realize it doesn’t belong to her. It’s Ben. And it’s pain but it’s not  _ pain _ -pain but it makes her heart jump in its rhythm anyway. 

“Are you crying?” Rey asks incredulously, finally turning to face him. 

He’s not crying. Technically. His eyes are dry, anyway. But his shoulders heave and his face is so expressive that it’s hard to miss how upset he is. She’s never seen Ben Solo upset. Or anything other than sneering in contempt, actually. 

“I’m not  _ fucking _ crying,” he snaps, as if the expletive somehow makes it more believable. Or maybe he thinks it makes him more masculine, to make up for the way his chin trembles and his puffy lips pout. 

“You might as well be,” Rey says, caught between a twinge of guilt and outright suspicion. “I’m the one who should be upset here. What’s your problem?” 

Ben stands there breathing heavily for several stressful moments before he finally gets himself together. He straightens his back and draws up his shoulders, so tall that it feels like he’s towering over her even from three feet away. “Even if you hate me, you’re stuck with me. Better get used to it.” 

He is…  such a dick. “Why are you like this? Why can’t you just apologize?” 

"I don't have to apologize to _you_." 

She can't stand one more second of his sparkling personality today. She really can't. Rey is very close to saying  _ fuck off _ to Mr. Skywalker’s edict and bolting. Ben might be some sort of big, fancy hockey player with giraffe legs but she’s fast. She’s good at surviving and escaping. She can outrun him for sure. 

Ben looks like he knows damn well what she’s thinking because his whole body tenses up. “Scavenger. Don't you dare.” 

That sounds like a challenge. Rey’s ragged converse squeak on the freshly waxed floors as she shifts her weight and then she’s off. 

Her backpack thumps against her side as she hoofs it towards the side door she knows is unsupervised and she prays there’s no hall monitor hiding around the corner. Ben curses behind her and then his thudding footsteps start up immediately in her wake. 

So maybe he’s a little faster than she thought. 

“This is  _ ridiculous, _ ” Ben calls between bellowing breaths. “What the  _ fuck _ .” 

She’s not sure if he’s talking to her or to himself but she lifts a hand to flip him off anyway. 

There. She can see the side door. She’s not sure how she’s going to lose him once they make it outside but she decides that’s a problem for thirty-seconds-in-the-future Rey. 

Her fingers have barely brushed the metal push bar when Ben’s arms close around her waist from behind. Rey squeals and kicks her legs out violently but he lifts her right off the ground as if she weighs nothing. 

“For the love of  _ christ _ , woman,  _ stop trying to kick me _ .” 

“Let me go!” 

He has her arms pinned against her sides but she still tries to swivel, throwing her weight back and forth.

Ben struggles but doesn’t drop her. He turns and backs through the door with her still firmly hugged against his chest, ignoring the way she’s trying to kneecap him. “Fucking --  _ stop it _ \-- god  _ damn _ \--” 

He drags her all the way through the courtyard and towards the rear student parking lot. 

Is this what being kidnapped feels like? She feels like she’s being kidnapped. 

Rey hollers and screeches the whole way but no one comes to her aid. It feels like Jakku all over again, really. A big betrayal by the authority figures who are supposed to keep her safe...  Even though it’s probably legal for her soulmate to drag her away kicking and screaming. 

“I’m just bringing you to my car. It’s not like you can afford one of your own and --” 

“Stop. Talking.” 

“-- and I’m tired of you screaming at me where the whole fucking school can hear.” 

Rey wishes he could see her face from this angle, so he would know exactly how withering her eye roll is. “You mean like how you called me a motherless whore in front of  _ the whole fucking school? _ ” 

She hears him suck in a sharp breath between his teeth. “Well, maybe if you weren’t such a loudmouthed  _ bitch _ , we wouldn’t have been fighting in the first place!” 

Holy shit.

She’s going to murder her soulmate.

“You shoved Poe and Finn into a locker!” 

“ _ They were talking to you! _ ” 

They make it to his car, a sleek, black, dangerous looking thing the likes of which has certainly never passed through any of Plutt’s yards. Because why wouldn’t he be rich and spoiled on top of being a popular asshole? Ben has to jostle her into one arm so he can get his keys and open the door but even so, she isn’t able to grapple her way free of his iron grasp. 

He wrestles her into the passenger seat and slams the door shut. It locks with a  _ beep _ and, when she tries to pry on the handle, the child safety lock keeps her in place. Asshole. 

As soon as he slides into the driver seat, she rounds on him. “Solo, if you tell me you’ve been a dick to me and my friends because you were jealous of them  _ talking _ to me…” 

Damning silence. Ben grips the steering wheel but doesn’t start the car, staring straight ahead out the window as if the stone back wall of the school is the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. 

Rey groans and lets her head fall back against her seat. 

This entire conversation - again, air quotes - is so wildly immature that Rey doesn’t even know how to respond. He’s a little boy pulling at her pigtails except they are  seventeen years old and he’s just an emotionally stunted asshole. 

Suddenly, Rey is just tired. Tired of this whole day, tired of her whole  life . Why couldn’t she have a normal soulmate? One who was kind to her and treated her gently?  No one has ever treated her gently. 

“Did you think calling me a dirty, poor orphan would make me like you?” 

“You  _ are _ poor and dirty and an orphan,” Ben mutters under his breath and if Rey could reach him, she’d kick him in the shin. 

“Are you serious right now? Do you hear yourself when you talk?” 

He grumbles something that doesn’t sound like an apology. 

“I think maybe we should schedule times to do this stupid handholding thing and then never speak to each other ever again,” Rey suggests in a tone that isn’t exactly a suggestion. This is her plan and she expects him to follow along, if only so they can have some semblance of peace between them. 

“No.” 

Well, there goes that idea. 

“You can’t think this is going anywhere good,” Rey says, gesturing between the two of them. “We can’t talk for two minutes without screaming at each other.” 

“We’re talking right now.”

He’s being intentionally obtuse. He has to be. 

“You just want more opportunities to fuck with me,” she snaps, curling away from him. No one has ever wanted her; not her parents, not Plutt. Why would her soulmate be different? 

Now Ben is the one who looks frustrated. He finally looks at her and his dark eyes are hooded and shrouded with an inscrutable expression. Suddenly, he snaps up her hand in his, ignoring her outraged shriek. Despite her struggling, he yanks her sleeve down so they’re skin to skin from fingertip to wrist.

“I know you feel this, too,” he says, his voice a low rasp. 

And oh, she  _ does _ feel it. It’s the release of a tension she’d never been aware of before. Comfort. Warmth. A wholeness she had never felt; some missing final piece sliding into place. A shift in her center of gravity, now located outside herself.

She closes her eyes before she can stop herself and leans into the touch. God, he’s an asshole but he feels  so good. If he just  _ never opened his mouth again _ , Rey could really get behind this. 

“Ah,” Ben says and that one single syllable is so smug that Rey’s eyes snap open and she glares at him. “You do.” 

Aaand the magic is gone. Rey tries to yank her hand away but Ben has managed to lace their fingers tightly together and he doesn’t seem inclined to let her go. 

He still doesn’t let go of her hand when he reaches around the steering column to start the car. Or when he shifts and pulls out of the parking lot, steering one handed. Or when he navigates them smoothly down the road and into traffic. 

Rey has to keep up appearances so she periodically tries to free herself. “Where are you taking me?” 

No answer 

She’s never held hands with a boy. Or touched a boy, really. Finn and Poe don’t count, not with the way they secretly give each other  _ the eyes _ all the time, as if she and Rose won't notice. 

Ben’s hand is just - it’s just so much bigger than hers. It engulfs hers completely and Rey is not, compared to average, a small or petite girl. She’s almost as tall as Finn and Poe. Her hands have always felt rough and large, calloused from years of working with scrap and tearing down old cars. 

But next to Ben, she feels small. Dainty, almost. It’s always been infuriating _ , _ just how much he’d made her feel diminished just by looming over her. Somehow, that fury has sunk down and turned into something hot, twirling around low in her belly now that he's touching her.

It occurs to her that she should probably be worried about Ben driving her to some mysterious location. Maybe he’s taking her somewhere to dispose of the body. Maybe he’s just been lulling her into a false sense of security with all that  _ wanting to be friends _ talk. 

The longer they sit in silence, linked together by their hands, the more Rey spirals. Why should she trust him? He’s already proven himself capable of terrible, cruel things. 

The side-eye he gives her when they pull up to a red light makes Rey panic, thinking he can somehow hear her thoughts or something now. But, for once, Ben wisely holds his tongue and says nothing. 

A miracle. 

It’s only a whole five minutes before Ben flicks on his turn signal but Rey’s palm is already sweating against his and she’s considering ways to bust out through the passenger side window. 

_ Catastrophizing _ , she thinks numbly. That’s what a case worker had scrawled in her file at one point. Rey always expects the worst because hoping for anything better leads to disappointment. 

Now, she expects her soulmate to murder her. Or kidnap her. Or maybe, best case scenario, drive her several miles outside of the city and drop her so she has to walk home or -- 

It’s an ice cream parlor. Ben pulls into a parking lot beneath a giant sign that declares the squat, cramped building as  _ THE PORG CONE _ . 

“Ice cream?” Rey asks slowly, giving him the chance to yell  _ ‘psyche! _ ’ and drive off. Plutt had done that to her once. 

She hasn’t had ice cream in years.

Ben doesn’t say anything. He just parks the car, disengages the child lock, and unfolds his long legs to climb out. Rey doesn’t immediately follow, just stares through the windshield at him as he waits by the hood, his face twisted into an impatient scowl under his dark mop of hair. 

She almost wants to lock herself in his car out of spite but on the other hand...  _ Ice cream _ . It lures her from the vehicle and she shuffles over to Ben’s side with her hands safely stuffed in her pockets where he can’t get to them. 

Rey doesn’t like how quiet he’s being. It’s suspicious. Without a word, he leads her up to the order window and - again, without her input - places an order for two large cones. 

“I can order my own ice cream,” she mutters and he just glares at her as if she’s the one who’s done something wrong here. 

He pays for both of them without comment. She expects some sort of insult related to her economic status because it would be on par with his behavior so far but -  _ nothing _ . 

When the attendant hands over their order, Ben shoves Rey’s at her so aggressively that she nearly fumbles and drops it. “What the  _ fuck _ ,” she snaps, scrambling to keep all three scoops balanced. 

Ben just grunts in return. 

They claim one of the picnic tables set up under the nearby awning. Rey sits on the bench like a normal person but Ben decides to lean his ass against the tabletop next to her and stretch his long legs out. 

“What is… all this?” Rey asks after she’s guiltily indulged in several large bites. 

“Ice cream.” 

She just glares. Prick.

“A date, then.” 

Rey chokes on her next bite. “You -  _ you _ \--” 

“This is what soulmates do, scavenger. I know you didn’t have parents to give you the  _ talk _ but --” 

“Oh,  _ fuck you _ . You kidnapped me! That’s not a date!” 

An older couple sitting at the nearest table startle and glance over at them, looking alarmed. But Rey’s soulmark is visible on her hand gripping the ice cream cone and Ben’s is bright and glaring on his face. As soon as the couple sees their matching red marks, their worried expressions melt into amusement. 

Ha ha. How funny. 

“I’m still not fucking you,” Rey says, ignoring their scandalized audience. “Just because you bought me ice cream.” 

He gives her that same, inscrutable expression that she still hasn’t figured out how to decipher. “You've brought that up more than once,” he says after a moment, his lips finally settling into a smug smile. “Seems like you think about fucking me more than you want to admit.” 

Rey sputters, caught out. Even before their marks, back when she’d first seen him, she’d - she’d thought --  _ briefly _ … 

But then he’d outed himself as a bully like every other jock on every other sports team at every other high school in the Republic. His nasty personality canceled out the appeal of his body. 

It didn’t stop her from thinking about it. Sometimes. 

She will stab herself in the eye with her ice cream cone before admitting to that, though. “I want to make sure we’re on the same page,” Rey mutters, forcing herself to look at him without blushing.

Ben’s eyes are dark, his pupils blown out wide to cover the warm brown iris, and he stares down at her with unsettling intensity. His gaze trails down over her body, lingering around her chest until she wraps an arm defensively around herself.

Not that there’s anything to see. Even if she hadn’t been wearing a tattered, oversized hoodie that turns her into a shapeless blob, Rey is well aware that her small breasts are not exactly exciting. 

It doesn’t stop her nipples from hardening and a tingle shivering down her spine. She never wears a bra - there’s no point - but she’s suddenly glad for her double layers of t-shirt and hoodie. 

“I don’t think we’re on the same page at all,” Ben says and  _ holy shit _ , when did his voice get so low? 

Rey is not having this. Not at all. He doesn’t get to flirt with her after he’s called her every ugly name under the sun. “Then you better find someone else or invest in Jergens,” she quips and she’s proud of the way her voice doesn’t shake. 

Ben snorts and it’s so close to a laugh that Rey can’t help but look at him suspiciously. She’s never seen him laugh. She didn’t know he knew how. 

“I need your phone number,” Ben says as if she hadn’t said anything at all. “If that separation sickness shit happens again, I need to be able to find you.” 

Rey presses her lips together.

He rolls his eyes. “Do you have to make everything difficult?” 

Rich, coming from him. Stubbornly, Rey eats the remainder of her ice cream in silence, her free arm still curled protectively around her torso as she leans as far from him as she can get without falling off the bench. 

“I won’t drive you back unless you give me your number,” Ben threatens as she munches on the last of her cone, trying to savor every bite. It’s unlikely she’ll get ice cream again any time soon.

“I’ll walk,” Rey immediately answers and he heaves a giant, frustrated sigh. 

“Scavenger. Try to be reasonable for once in your life.” 

“Apologize.” 

“What?” 

“Apologize for being a dick… And I’ll  _ think _ about it.” 

Ben looks like he swallowed a lemon. She can’t imagine he’s ever had to apologize for anything in his life. Mommy is a senator, after all, and his family has more money than god. Why apologize when you can just throw cash at a problem until it goes away? 

But he can’t buy her. She wonders if that rankles. 

In fact, she’s all but positive that he won’t do it. Even his soulmate can’t be worth his pride - especially not when  _ she’s _ his soulmate. She waits, feeling particularly smug at wriggling her way out of his demand, even if it means she’ll probably spend the next three hours walking home. 

“I’m sorry,” he grits out, each word pushed between his teeth. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I  _ know _ I’m an asshole.” 

Rey sits, stunned. She hadn’t expected that. She stares at him, her mouth open, and he blushes so vividly that it nearly outshines his mark. When he turns away, staring at the neighboring building, she can see that the tip of his ear is bright pink, too. 

A full minute passes like that before he whips back around. Any trace of vulnerability on his face is replaced by that clench-jawed, furrowed-brow look of frustration that she’s so familiar with. He holds out an expectant hand. “Your number.” 

She’s damn well not about to hand over her phone - her most precious, expensive possession despite being multiple generations out of date and cracked across half the screen - so she pulls up her contacts list and makes him recite his number. 

Ben looks at her phone with disgust and she cradles it protectively against her chest. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have mommy and daddy pay for everything,” she snaps, hating the way his judgment makes her feel. 

It took her two years to save up for a phone of her own. She scrapes and scrounges every penny she gets from the odd jobs she does between work for Plutt to pay for her bill every month so she can keep in contact with her friends. Most weeks, she goes without food to make sure she can afford it. 

_ She _ did it. All on her own. There is no one to help her, not even when she’s exhausted from tearing apart probably-stolen scrap cars and homework and never getting enough sleep. 

But of course all Ben sees is her hand me down clothes and broken phone. She’ll never, ever be good enough for him. 

Rey refuses to meet his gaze as she shoots his number a quick text (a single poop emoji) and then she stands, meticulously gathering up their dirty napkins to wipe down the table and throw them out. 

“What did I do  _ this _ time?” Ben asks, trailing after her like her much-oversized shadow. “I didn’t even  say anything.” 

“You didn’t do anything,” Rey mumbles honestly. His existence alone is enough to make her feel inadequate. It doesn’t help that he calls attention to it at every turn but she supposes that’s just the nature of the stark difference between the two of them. 

Fate has a real funny sense of humor, tying them together. 

True to his word, Ben follows her back to his car and lets her in. He doesn’t put the key in the ignition, though. They just sit there quietly and Rey realizes the problem: it’s still not even noon. They have a whole day left to burn. 

Rey shudders at the thought of going home early and trying to explain the situation to Plutt. He’d call her a liar and he’d be  pissed since he’d assume she was skipping school again against his explicit order.

“Do you want to come back to my place?” 

Rey nearly throws herself out of the vehicle but he curses and grabs her arm. “Wait, no. Not like that. Fuck. I meant - just - my parents are gone for the next week. The house is empty. I have a Playstation. Or a Switch, if that’s your thing. Or whatever.” 

“Solo, are you trying to bribe me with video games?” 

“Is it working?” 

It is kind of working. Rey had stolen a few furtive minutes playing around on Rose’s Switch once during lunch but it's the only video game she's ever played. 

“... You’re still an irredeemable asshole.” 

Ben grins, actually  _ grins _ , a big smile that makes him look a little goofy and gives him dimples. Rey blinks at him, breath trapped in her lungs and her heart hammering away. 

Oh. She's never seen him smile before. He looks like... not an asshole. 

Dammit. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing to say except WOW, you guys leave the most clever and thoughtful comments! 💖

Ben’s house is one of those stupid, giant constructions in the suburbs. There’s a gate that he opens with a remote tucked into the center console of his car, and a short paved driveway that leads up into a three car garage.

They actually have a  yard . It’s only a small square of grass but it’s green and Rey could cry for envy. 

The garage opens and Ben parks between a brand new Tesla and an erroneously ancient, battered Ford Falcon. 

Wordlessly, Ben leads her through a steel door in the garage that leads straight into a polished, white kitchen. There’s even an island and a huge fridge that Rey could comfortably fit inside and probably still have room to walk around. 

She’s never seen anything like it. She has hazy memories of her first foster placement before Plutt, a mild-mannered, middle-class couple that eventually decided Rey’s behavioral issues were too much for them to handle. But even their kitchen didn’t compare to this. 

Ben kicks his shoes off onto a plastic tray just inside the door and Rey sheepishly does the same. Her converse look both shabby and tiny next to his black hightops.

She doesn’t want to make it too obvious that she is struck dumb by his house but she can’t help it. Ben has the gall to roll his eyes at her but he wisely doesn’t say a word, waving her through a living room that looks like no one has ever once  _ lived _ in it and down a flight of stairs hidden behind a nondescript door.

The scavenger in Rey would really like to explore every inch of this monument to wealth inequality but a bigger part of her feels wildly uncomfortable. She follows Ben without complaint until she realizes where he’s leading her. 

“Is this a murder basement?” she asks, raising her brows at the back of his head. “Is this where you murder me?” 

She can’t see his face but she just knows he’s rolling his eyes again. “My mom likes to call it the ‘playroom’ but I think that probably sounds worse than ‘murder basement’.” 

They round the corner at the bottom of the steps and… It definitely isn’t a murder basement. There’s a big flatscreen TV on the wall with a plush sectional in front of it. A cabinet under the TV is lined with every console Rey has ever seen an advertisement for, along with a neat stack of old video game disks out of their cases. 

There’s a god damn pool table against the back wall. To one side, there’s a counter and a small fridge and Rey is  _ pretty sure _ it’s a fully stocked bar, which is just - what the fuck. Rey observes it all with a critical eye and a little wrinkle between her brows. 

It’s the first room in the house that actually looks lived in. There’s even an opened bag of chips and an empty glass on the coffee table in front of the couch. 

In front of her, Ben stands awkwardly in the center of the room and shifts his weight back and forth. Inanely, she notices that even his socks are black. And his feet are huge. Damn. 

“This is my room, mostly.” He must see the way her eyes widen in horror. “Not my  _ bed _ room. That’s upstairs.” 

She doesn’t care where his bedroom is. Obviously. She’s just amazed that this house has so many rooms that he can just casually claim two of them.  Her and Plutt share a bathroom and a kitchenette. She’s lucky she has her own bedroom and that’s probably only because it’s a required part of her foster agreement. 

Feeling very much like a trespasser, Rey carefully sits in the corner part of the sectional and pulls her legs up so she can curl herself into as small and inoffensive a ball as possible. Ben just stands there, watching her. 

Several moments pass like that. 

“Do you have Animal Crossing?” she eventually asks in a small voice to break the staredown they’ve got going on. It’s the only game she’d played on Rose’s Switch. 

It works. Ben scoffs at her choice but crosses the room so he can pull his Switch from its dock. He tosses it to her and Rey nearly has a heart attack as the expensive electronic sails through the air. “Lame. Of course you’d want to play that one.” 

She glares at him, curling protectively around the device. “It’s a cute game.” 

“Whatever.”

Ben flops down next to her, closer than she thinks he has any right to be, and grabs the playstation controller from the coffee table. He flicks on the TV and they sit in comfortable silence for once as their respective consoles load up. 

“You can start a new island,” he says suddenly. “If you want. I haven’t touched that game since it came out so you might as well.” 

Such an incredible waste, to buy a game and then never play it because it’s  _ boring _ . 

Rey fiddles until she figures out how to wipe the save data for Animal Crossing while Ben starts up a game that seems to involve cowboys and skinning deer. She’s not particularly interested; it’s hard to enjoy fictional violence when it’s part of your real life all the time. 

As much as it pains her to admit it, sitting next to Ben when he’s not opening his big mouth is… Soothing. She likes it. And it makes her hate him all the more for being  _ such _ a prick and ruining the potential of it all. 

She plays through the intro, keeping her nose buried in the screen and her legs drawn up. She feels kind of normal, for once, hanging out with a boy and playing a video game instead of working her fingers to the bone. It’s nice. 

And there’s no one screaming at her and the house doesn’t smell like stale beer. Is this how the other half lives?

Suddenly, Ben’s hand is just  _ there _ \- on her knee. Touching her. His palm feels hot through her jeans and when she glances up, startled, she realizes he’s on a loading screen and he doesn’t even seem like he’s noticed what he’s doing, his face still turned towards the TV. 

“Why are you touching me?” she demands and refuses to think about why she doesn’t immediately slap his hand away. Instead, she stares at it. Thick fingers, knuckles, prominent tendons and veins. She swallows. 

“What?” Ben’s head turns and he looks at his hand like it belongs to someone else. “Oh.”

_ Whore, scavenger, dirty orphan _ , Rey chants to herself, desperate for a reminder of all the horrible things he’s said to her.  _ Poor, greasy, bitch. _

_ Soulmate _ . 

“Don’t you have a game to play?” Rey grumbles but she still doesn’t make any attempt to remove his hand. 

Ben curses and abruptly turns back to his game, apparently reminded that taking a hand off the controller could get him killed. 

Unfortunately, it also appears that he has now remembered that she exists for him to torment. 

“We can only go sixteen hours apart before we start getting sick,” he says, frowning at his game as he tries to shoot someone from around a corner. This conversation is clearly not important enough to draw his attention away from the game. “So we’ll have to see each other outside school.  Obviously you’ll come here so --” 

“I can’t.” 

That gets his attention. She’s already scrambling to formulate an excuse, even before he levels a black scowl in her direction. 

She can’t tell the truth. If she tells him that Plutt won’t allow it, he’ll inevitably tell a ‘ _ trusted adult _ ’. She’ll lie if anyone asks, of course, but Plutt will be  _ pissed _ if her caseworker or,  maker forbid , the god damn police come sniffing around and asking questions.

Plutt gets even meaner when he’s pissed. 

“I have… A job,” Rey says, pulling the excuse out of her ass at the last second. It’s a slight exaggeration but not actually a lie. 

Ben doesn’t look impressed. “Okay? What’s your schedule?” 

Rey flounders. She’s usually better than this. “I - I work  _ all _ the time. After school.” 

Now, he just looks frustrated. “I’m not going to spend all night throwing up again because you want to be stubborn and prove a point.” 

And then, because she can’t help herself even though she hates that he’s right, she stubbornly turns away to prove a point. 

The TV chimes and she hears his controller hit the table a second before his big body is suddenly blocking out her view of the room. He has a hand braced on the back of the couch on either side of her head, trapping her in the corner. 

His face hovers above hers, shadowed by the overhead lighting. “What happened to your arm?” he demands out of nowhere. She does not like the path this conversation is taking. 

“I don't know what you're talking about.” 

Ben’s weight shifts and one of his hands curls around her bicep, exactly where Plutt’s meaty fingers had left bruises. She hisses.

“You have a handprint. Right here.” 

The same hand drops down to her hip and she nearly jumps out of her skin when his thumb gently ghosts over the prominent ridge of her hip bone. “And a big black and blue here.” 

Rey wants to kick him. She even gets as far as uncurling one of her legs but her foot lands against his thigh and just… rests there. “How could you possibly know that?” she asks, trying to deflect and simultaneously trying to squirm out from under his intense stare. 

Without a word, Ben pulls up his sleeve. There, on alabaster, speckled skin: a handprint in vivid red, marks of her pain on her soulmate’s body. The pamphlet had mentioned something about that, hadn’t it?

“Your foster father hurts you.” 

“No.” 

“And he’s threatened to keep you away from me.” 

“ _ No _ .” 

It’s panic that has her puffing and squirming beneath him. Nothing more. “Get  off me,” she snaps, pushing at his leg with her foot. She catches him off guard and manages to shove his knee a whole two inches back. 

He retaliates by sinking his weight into her until he’s practically straddling her lap. “Tell me the truth and I’ll get up.” 

His face is too close. His lips hover near the shell of her ear and Rey  _ whines _ when his breath skates across her neck. 

This is why she doesn’t want him close. All reason goes out the window and it’s like her body takes over while her brain shuts down. Or maybe it’s her spirit, reaching out for its twin against all logic and reason and self-preservation. 

Rey is not having it. She flails, cupping the Switch protectively against her chest as she braces both feet against his stomach and tries to force him away. 

It doesn’t work. He’s so  _ god damned heavy _ . Worse, her efforts seem to amuse him and his lips have twisted up into that smirk she hates so much. “Nice try, Scavenger. Now  talk .” 

Huffing, Rey tries to roll aside and sneak under his arm but Ben is fast. He swoops down and blocks her escape route, bringing them face to face again and - oh, he’s such a  fucker . He’s actually laughing at her. 

Rey bares her teeth and briefly, insanely considers biting his stupid giant nose right off his stupid face. “Fuck  off , Solo! Why do you even care?” 

“You’re my soulmate,” he says, which seems to be quickly becoming his favorite sentence ever. “Even if you weren’t, it’s still fucked up that your foster father hits you.” 

“ _ Life _ is fucked up. That’s just how it is.” 

“So you admit he hits you?” 

“Oh, for the -  _ fine _ , yes, I work for Plutt in his scrapyard and he told me I’d have to pick up extra hours if I wanted to spend time with you.” 

Rey’s mouth snaps shut and she’s horrified that he’s effectively learned to irritate her into compliance. God but he’s relentless. She’s not used to having such focused attention on her from anyone and it makes her chest feel all tight and bubbly. 

Ben finally scoots back an inch, giving her room to breathe. “You know that’s a felony, right.” Not stated as a question. She has had a chance to see Ben Solo angry many, many times and she recognizes that look in his eyes. He’s pissed. “So is beating your kid.” 

She wants to snarkily remind him that, as he so often enjoys pointing out, she’s not  actually Plutt’s real kid. She’s not actually anyone’s kid. And the adults in her life can do anything they want with her, as they had proven many times over.

Her place is to endure. 

“The alternative is a group home. I know  _ you’ve _ never had to see one but trust me, I’d rather deal with Plutt.” 

Ben leans back. He’s still straddling her between his knees on the couch and he towers over her like some sort of patron saint of infuriating teenage boys but at least it puts space between them.

She misses his body heat, just a little. Just because his house is cold, of course. 

“The alternative is  _ here _ ,” Ben says, as if she’s the dumbass. He’s always had a way of making her feel stupid. “Why would you stay in that trash heap when you can stay with me, instead? Aren’t you embarrassed to live like that?” 

Arrogant boy. Rey stares at him, halfway expecting a punchline because he can’t be serious, right?

Her mouth twists into a mutinous line and this time, Rey plants her foot right in the center of his chest and shoves. Unbalanced on just his knees, he tumbles off the couch with an undignified yelp. 

“What makes you think you’re better than Plutt?” Rey says, feeling vicious and mean. Ben brings that out in her. He makes her a worse person.

Sprawled out on the floor in front of her, Ben glares at her with baleful, dark eyes. The mark on his face seems to glow, angry and bright beneath the overhead lights. “I’ve  _ never _ hit you.” 

“And I’ve been hit enough times to know that physical pain is definitely not the worst thing a person can do to you.” 

They glare at each other, both of them stubborn and intractable to their cores. Maybe fate did have one thing right: they are far too similar and only in the worst of ways. 

It’s satisfying that Ben is the first to look away. He shoves himself to his feet and stands over her, his shoulders heaving with huffing, bullish breaths. For a second, she’s afraid that he really  is going to hit her and try to make her eat her words. 

“You were the one who slapped me,” he says quietly, running a finger down the mark on his cheek. “No matter what you ever said to me, I  never considered hitting you.” 

Oh, that makes her feel guilty. How dare he? 

Rey shrinks into herself, clutching at the Switch in her hands and dropping her eyes to the screen so she doesn’t have to look at him. At the soulmate she’d slapped. At the soulmate who’d pushed her and insulted her until she’d lashed out. 

“I’m… Sorry,” she forces out and yeah, maybe they have  _ this _ in common, too. She hates apologizing. Moreover, she hates apologizing to  him . 

But, she reasons with herself, it’s more for her than for him. Now that he’s introduced the weight of guilt to her shoulders, this is the only way to be rid of it. 

Ben’s jaw moves, his mouth rolling against his teeth and his chin wrinkled. “Okay,” he says and his hands uncurl from the tight fists they’d balled into. He sits beside her again and picks up his controller without a word. 

The silence is less comfortable this time, tense with the mean words between them. 

“I’m going to tell my parents about Plutt,” he says, casually and without looking at her. 

Rey tenses but she’s so tired of yelling at him. “I’ll deny it.” 

“I know.” 

It feels like they’ve managed to come to a truce for now but Rey knows it won’t last long. She doesn’t doubt that he’s going to squeal on her home life the first chance he gets and it’s going to cause a heap of trouble for Plutt and her by extension. 

But that’s a later problem. 

For now, Rey sits next to her soulmate and plays Animal Crossing and feels like a normal girl. 

\---

Ben drags his feet when it comes time to drive her home. She’d known he would and so she told him she had to leave a half hour earlier than she really did. He huffs and puffs the whole time, cursing under his breath as he gathers up his shoes and a coat that he probably really doesn’t need. 

He becomes visibly more agitated the closer they get to Plutt’s. The area isn’t the  nicest , she knows that, but in her estimation it is a hundred times better than Jakku ever was. 

But apparently Ben has never seen Jakku because his knuckles go white around the steering wheel as if he’s driving through Niima and not the industrial district of one of the safest cities in the Republic. 

“I can’t believe you live here,” he mutters and Rey glares at him. Would it really kill him to go thirty seconds without insulting her? 

“It must be nice to live in your fantasy world where everyone can afford to live in giant mansions.” 

She makes him pull off the road at the end of the block. If Plutt sees her in a car with a strange boy - Rey doesn’t even want to imagine the shitstorm. Better to keep Ben as far from her foster father’s sight as possible for as long as possible. 

“I’m not letting you walk down this street,” Ben says, as if that’s his decision in literally any way at all.

“I walk here all the time, Solo. I  _ live _ on this street.” 

He has nothing to say to that, presumably because there’s nothing  _ to _ say. Rey lives here. He lives in a cushy mansion on the other side of town. That’s just reality. 

“Well… Thanks for today,” Rey says and it’s only partially sarcastic. Today hadn’t been  awful , despite spending most of it with Ben Motherfucking Solo. She got ice cream out of it, anyway. She puts a hand on the door handle.

“Wait.” Without waiting for her to comply, Ben grabs her arm and yanks her across the center console, halfway into his lap. He wraps her up in his arms, squeezing her tight. 

With her face squished against his chest and her hands braced on either pec, she can feel as much as hear his voice when he speaks. “I’ll text you tonight,” he says, his lips pressed against the top of her head. “And I’ll be here to pick you up tomorrow morning.” 

Sputtering and annoyed by the liberties he feels so free to take, Rey shoves at his arms. “We need to talk about boundaries,” she hisses, squirming until she manages to wiggle free. 

It feels amazing every time they touch - but he can’t just  take whatever he wants.

Ben is utterly unrepentant. He has the gall to shrug. “Physical contact,” he says, as if that explains why he felt the need to hug her instead of just touching her hand. “I’ll see you tonight, scavenger. I don’t want to go more than twelve hours apart. I’d rather not risk another round of sickness.” 

Rey would quite happily stretch that out to sixteen or seventeen hours but she thinks of how absolutely awful she’d felt last night and this morning and shudders. Maybe -  maybe he has a point. Maybe it’s worth touching her worst enemy a few times a day to avoid feeling like that. 

There’s not enough money in the world for her to admit she might agree with him for once, though. She glares at him and throws the door open to scramble out of the vehicle before he can grab her again. 

“Bye, Solo,” she snaps and slams the door shut again before slumping off down the road. 

She feels his eyes on her back until she rounds a corner and his car disappears from view. 

Plutt is predictably pissy when she gets home but no more so than usual. That means the school hasn’t called again and a caseworker hasn’t gotten into contact with him yet. Rey lets out a relieved breath even when he grunts at her and tells her there’s a new junker in the yard that she needs to tear down for parts. 

Rey actually likes working on cars. She’s not great at school because she’s usually hungry and has a thousand other things to worry about and it all seems so  pointless . But cars make sense. They fit together and come apart in perfect order. 

It’s nice not having homework, even though she knows she’s going to pay for it as she plays catchup over the next few days. She works out in the yard and Plutt works in the office and for just a few hours, everything is normal again . 

\---

_ Come outside _ , is the text she gets from Ben six hours later. It’s dark out but she’s still working in the yard with the help of a mechanic’s light hanging from the hood of the car she’s been disemboweling all evening. 

Rey is covered in grease and rust. Even her scalp feels gritty. 

Part of her balks at the thought of Ben seeing her like this but another, more petty and spiteful part, taking a vengeful glee at the thought of him trying to hug her now. If he wants to call her a dirty scavenger, then that’s exactly what she’ll be for him. 

She does have some small amount of dignity though, so she wipes her hands on a dirty old rag before furtively sneaking past the locked yard gate. She leaves the light on - if Plutt happens to look out and see, he’ll think she’s just stepped out to grab another tool. 

Ben, at least, has the good sense to have parked several hundred feet down the road. It’s still closer than Rey would like but at least he’s not idling right outside Plutt’s front door. 

He’s outside of the vehicle, leaning his ass against the hood with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression lights up when he sees her approaching and it’s enough to make her cheeks flush under the protective layer of grime. 

Then she gets close enough for him to see said grime and his whole face collapses into a scowl. “Don’t you have a shower in that shithole?” 

Her chest had felt all warm and tingly but the feeling quickly drains away as soon as he opens his stupid mouth. “I’m still working, asshole.” 

His frown intensifies and he glances down at the screen of his cell phone. “At eight o'clock?” 

Rey just shrugs and holds out a hand - black all around her cuticles and under the ends of her nails - so they can get this over with. 

But Ben does not take her hand. His eyes narrow and he looks over her shoulder Plutt’s place as if he can set the whole building and surrounding property on fire with the force of his stare alone. 

“I don’t have all night. He’s gonna notice if I’m gone too long,” she snaps, waving her hand more aggressively in his direction. 

With an obnoxious huff, Ben grabs her offered hand - and then immediately uses it to yank her in close and wrap his arms around her. 

Rey squeaks and wiggles in his grasp. “I’m gross! Come on,  _ stop it. _ ” 

She can’t be sure, squished up against him and distracted as she is by fighting back, but she’s pretty sure he has his nose buried in her hair. His lips press a soft kiss to her forehead. 

Maybe he really likes the taste of motor oil. 

“And if he knows you’re sneaking out here with me instead of working, he’ll hit you?” Ben asks, his voice low and dark. 

“He doesn’t usually  _ hit _ me,” Rey mutters, low enough that she hopes he might not hear. “He’ll probably just try to cut my hair off or something.” 

Plutt had given her a choppy bowl cut once when she was twelve because she’d stolen ten dollars to buy food. It had made her life hell at school for four months until it had grown out enough for her to trim it into something closer to a sleek bob. 

All at once, Ben’s hand is in her hair, his fingers wrapped up around the sloppy ponytail she wears to work. He tugs gently and she nearly chokes on her next breath, her lungs seizing up as the nerves in her scalp tingle to sudden life. 

He doesn’t say a word, just holds onto her hair for several seconds before finally releasing her entirely. He steps back and Rey almost falls flat on her face without his broad chest holding her upright. 

“I’ll be here to pick you up for school in the morning,” Ben says and he sounds cold. It makes the hair on her arms and at the nape of her neck stand on end. “Try to wash off some of the dirt before then.” 

He turns and slams his way back into the car before driving off.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❤️❤️❤️

Morning finds Rey feeling less like she’s dying and more like she’s  _ dying _ . 

There is no nausea or fatigue or pain, not like the previous day, so obviously Ben’s plan had worked. No, Rey’s pain is from something else altogether. 

She had dreamed of Ben Solo. Of  _ fucking _ Ben Solo. Or what she thinks fucking is like, anyway, since she can't really know for sure; disjointed images of his mouth on hers, his bare chest, his hips slotted between her thighs. She wakes up to a sticky mess in her underwear and sweat beaded at the backs of her knees. 

So, yeah. Rey is dying. The worst kind of death. It’s a death that involves a lot of shame and embarrassment and self-loathing and inevitably not being able to look her douchebag soulmate in the eye when he comes to pick her up for school. 

Worse yet, she hadn’t even managed to finish her damn dream. So she’s hot and bothered with an insistent ache low in her hips even as she drags herself through her morning routine. It’s not something Rey has ever really had to deal with before. 

She tries shoving her fingers between her legs but the whole ordeal feels dirty and weird and wholly unsatisfying and she simply refuses to think of Ben while she does it. 

With Plutt always hovering and the thin walls of their shitty apartments, Rey has never indulged much in… That. And now her body is practically weeping for  _ that _ . 

It’s not fair. 

There had been very little in the way of sex ed in Jakku. Primarily conservative Imperial-remnant local senators had ensured that much. And sex ed at Chandrila happened in freshman and junior years - so Rey has already missed both. 

Plutt doesn’t say a word to her when she drags herself out into the kitchen but his piggish eyes follow her with a cold kind of calculation that she doesn’t like. She’d almost prefer he start yelling at her than whatever this is. 

She scurries from the apartment as quickly as she can, with her customary coffee clutched in her hand. Disconcerted as she is, she almost forgets entirely about Ben’s promise to be waiting for her at the end of the road.

“You still have grease on your nose,” is the first thing he says to her, leaning up against his car again and bundled up in his hockey team varsity jacket to ward off the early morning chill. “Here.” 

He reaches out, ignoring her flinch, and drags his thumb along the crease of her nose. He shows her the black smudge before wiping it on his jeans. “Gross little scrap rat,” he murmurs and she tries to ignore the way it makes her insides churn with some fucked up mix of arousal and shame. 

The way he says it now sounds almost affectionate. 

Or maybe Rey is stumbling into the beginnings of something like Stockholm Syndrome. 

“If you’re going to insult me the whole time, I’ll just take the bus,” she snaps because it’s important, she thinks, to keep pushing for some sort of boundaries. If he keeps saying nasty things every time they meet, they are going to have long and miserable lives as they circle around each other. 

Ben glares at her but blessedly stops talking. It’s tempting to take the bus anyway out of spite but at least this way they can do their requisite touching before class starts. Hopefully, he’ll leave her alone for the rest of the day. 

“Did you eat breakfast?” he asks the same second her ass touches the seat. She doesn’t even have the door closed yet. 

“I eat breakfast at school.” 

“Really? I thought you only used those bagels as projectiles.” 

“You deserved it.” 

Ben scoffs as he turns the car around and starts off towards the school. Much like the day before, his free hand eventually migrates to her knee. His palm feels warm through her jeans and the weight is comforting. 

His hand. On her thigh. After  _ that _ dream. She refuses to look at his big fingers brushing at her inseam and does her best to pretend she hasn’t even noticed.

“A bagel isn’t breakfast.” He’s like a dog at the bone sometimes, the way he tenaciously clings to topics. 

“Bagels are free.” 

“I thought you worked all the time? Shouldn’t you have money?” 

Rey decides not to answer at all. He seems frustrated by her silence but he always seems frustrated so it’s nothing new or different there. 

They make it to the school parking lot before he speaks again. “I have hockey practice tonight.” 

She stares at him, waiting for more relevant information. None is forthcoming. “Okay?” 

“You should come to the rink with me.” 

She stares at him some more. “You want me to come watch you play hockey with all your asshole friends who also insult me every chance they get?” 

It’s hard to tell through the fall of his thick, dark hair but she’s pretty sure she spies a pink flush creeping up his cheeks. “Hux and Phasma won’t say anything to you.” 

Hux being the lanky ginger boy who’d helped Ben right after she’d slapped him and Phasma being a terrifying, blonde amazon who somehow manages to tower over both boys. 

“Right.” Rey has never heard her own voice sound so flat before.

“I’m serious. I might not be able to see you tonight, otherwise.” 

“Sounds like a  _ you _ problem.” 

“God dammit _ , _ Rey - I’m trying here but  _ you  _ have to try, too!” 

It’s the first time she’s ever heard her actual name from his lips. It makes her whole body shudder and something inside her perks up and stretches out with recognition. That ache between her legs throbs as if to say ' _Remember me, bitch?_ ' and Rey has to close her eyes against a dream-memory of his voice at her ear, gasping her name again and again. 

But then she actually processes the words coming out of his mouth and any hint of arousal is snuffed out like a candle. Gone in a puff of smoke, leaving her feeling cold and slightly nauseous with shame. 

“You’re trying?” she repeats, her voice increasing in volume with every syllable. “You have never once had something nice to say about me! I refuse to spend the rest of my life feeling like a fucking burden to you, too!” 

Ben looks stunned, like this is somehow surprising information. Like he hasn’t been a nasty piece of shit to her since they met. 

She doesn’t know why she doesn’t get out of the car and storm away. Maybe she’s a masochist. Maybe she’s just waiting for him to say something awful enough to finally carve out that terrible, lingering kernel of hope.

He swallows and she can’t help but watch the way his Adam’s apple moves as he does. “I can be nicer,” he says, so quietly she almost misses it. 

She scoffs. 

“I can be,” he insists, a little louder and more indignant. “Insulting each other is just - that’s just what we do.” 

“Well, maybe I don’t like it.” 

The way he’s looking at her now… That’s the way she’d always hoped her soulmate might look at her. His eyes are amber in the morning sun that slants through the windshield and for the first time, she thinks he looks gentle. For the first time, she feels like someone really  _ sees _ her. 

Of course, that someone is Ben Motherfucking Solo. 

“You’re not a burden,” he says and Rey just hates him for saying the one thing she would never have a chance of resisting. It’s the only thing she’s ever wanted to hear. His blush grows progressively deeper but he doesn’t look away. “I never thought I would find my soulmate. Or that I had one at all. And then it’s  _ you _ . Even under all the dirt and shitty clothes --” 

“Hey!” 

“-- you’re still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.” 

Rey opens her mouth to interrupt again because this is, all told, the weirdest attempt at an apology she’s ever heard. She closes it again just as quickly because she doesn’t know what to say. 

Her eyes burn and she’s mortified to realize her vision has started to blur - just because her soulmate called her pretty. 

_ The prettiest _ , corrects a little voice in her head, weak and needy and soaking up praise like water on Jakku sand.

“I just don’t want you to be mean,” Rey whispers, feeling pathetic.

She has her fingers knotted together, nails digging into her knuckles. Ben somehow manages to wedge his hand between hers and pry them apart so he can lace his fingers through hers instead. 

He doesn’t promise to never insult her again. She wouldn’t believe him if he did. 

But it still fans the relentless hope inside her that just won’t die. She isn’t sure if that’s better or worse. 

\---

Rey heads to the cafeteria for breakfast and Ben heads to Mr. Skywalker’s office, ostensibly to pick up their temporary soulmate registry cards. 

As always, Poe, Finn, and Rose wait at their typical table. 

“Are you actually gonna be in class today?” Poe asks, sounding both suspicious and accusatory.

Rey probably shouldn’t have ignored all their texts. 

“I think so,” she says, shrugging it off. “Unless Mr. Skywalker orders me and Solo to do another weird bonding day.” 

“You were with him  _ all day _ yesterday?” Poe, again. He sounds appalled which is fair since she had literally just twenty-four hours ago told him Ben Solo was still enemy number one. 

Rey winces. “It’s not really a choice, Poe.” 

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Finn asks, leaning across the table and handing Rey a bagel and a Snapple, just like always. 

“I thought he would,” Rey says and stalls by shoving a big chunk of carb and cream cheese into her mouth. Her friends wait attentively, apparently rapt by the unfolding drama of her life. She swallows and looks away. “He bought me ice cream and - uh - brought me back to his place and let me play on his Switch.” 

She says it all in one breath, the words a quick mash of syllables and guilt. 

Silence greets her in return. All three of her friends stare at her with wide eyes. It’s Rose who breaks the stare off, her mouth curling into a sweet smile. “I mean, that’s good, right?” she asks, always the optimist. “If he’s being nice?” 

“I don’t trust it,” Poe adds. It makes sense. Aside from Rey herself, he and Finn have taken the most shit from Solo over the months. 

Finn is slower to give his opinion, running a finger over his lips thoughtfully. “I’d like to believe people can change,” he says, “and I know you’ll be careful. But we’re still allowed to be worried about you.” 

Rey sighs and picks listlessly at her bagel. She’s starving, as usual, but it sits heavy in her stomach. “Is it a bad thing that I want to just get along with my soulmate? Even if he’s the worst?” 

Rose reaches across the table and lays her hand on Rey’s forearm. “It’s not terrible,” she says and her expression is so earnest that Rey actually believes her. “It’s normal. You don’t need to avoid us or hide from us, either. We’re here for you, no matter what you decide to do with Ben.” 

Poe looks like he swallowed a lemon but even he nods in agreement. “I’m still going to trip him, though.” 

Rey giggles, snorting and spitting everything seasoning across the table. Some of it goes up her nose; Finn leans away with an exaggerated  _ ewwww _ while Poe thumps on Rey’s back to ‘help’. 

It’s good to know she isn’t going to have to one day choose between her friends and her soulmate. 

\---

Mr. Skywalker doesn’t call her back down to his office, which leaves Rey to trudge through her morning classes. Ben had been right; a bagel is hardly a hearty breakfast, especially since she’d only had a sandwich for dinner the night before. 

She practically naps through her remedial math class, which kind of sucks because she doesn’t mind math. She’s only in the remedial class because she never has time to do her homework correctly and she can’t exactly explain why when her teacher asks.  Instead, she gets to sit, bored and half-asleep, in a classroom while the teacher lectures on concepts that Rey understands but can’t demonstrate. 

The worst part of the morning is all the whispering. Rey keeps her hand tucked away with the sleeve of her hoodie pulled over her fingers but people still stare. She still hears, more than once, ‘ _ THAT’S Ben Solo’s soulmate? _ ’ and a nonzero number of poorly muffled laughs when she goes by. 

She can’t even be angry about it. If the roles were reversed, she’d be just as shocked as them. Ben is popular - or  _ infamous _ , more like - and rich and apparently a star hockey player.

Rey knows jackshit about hockey.

As soon as the lunch bell rings, Rey makes a beeline for the cafeteria. She keeps her head down and hunches her shoulder as if that’s going to protect her from the wrath of every shitty, judgmental teenager at Chandrila. 

She’s not even halfway down the hall when she recognizes the dark specter looming just outside the cafeteria door. It’s Ben, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his long legs stretched out in front of him.

“Hey,” he says, artfully ignoring the way her eyes dart around to see if anyone is watching. 

Of course,  _ everyone _ is watching. 

Ben reaches for her hand in a movement that seems more instinctive than anything but Rey flinches away. 

“We’re in public,” she mutters, trying to take a step back out of reach. 

But of course, Ben is a grade-A, organic asshole. He ignores her and lunges to grab her hand before she can get away again. 

“Trust me, everyone already knows we’re together.” 

“We’re not - we’re not  _ together! _ ” 

He gives her a _look_ but Rey is right and this is a hill she’ll die on. She doesn’t consider him her boyfriend. And okay, sure, she wouldn’t ever be able to consider anyone else her boyfriend either at this point but that doesn’t mean her and Ben are together in the way he’s implying.

Because they’re not. 

And even thinking the word boyfriend makes her blush and her stomach flip. 

“Let me guess, you were going to get a free peanut butter sandwich for lunch.” 

“... Yes.” 

Ben sniffs as if that’s the most offensive thing he’s ever heard and then he’s hauling her into the cafeteria by her arm. His steps are so long that Rey has to practically jog to keep up with him until she yanks on his hand and he slows down. 

“I’m buying you lunch. What do you want?” 

Unlike Jakku, where the school lunch offerings consisted of a single line and exactly one option on the menu, Chandrila’s cafeteria is two story and contains several cafe-style serveries. It’s more like a food court at an upscale mall than a high school. 

It’s also expensive. She’s never had a chance to actually explore any of it. 

Rey remains stubbornly silent. She refuses to willfully accept his charity but neither can she turn down free food. 

When her answer isn’t forthcoming quickly enough, Ben grunts and starts off towards a counter with the shortest line, towing her along behind him like a dinghy. He orders food for both of them (the woman behind the counter smiles indulgently the whole time, looking between their marks and their linked hands) and Rey maintains her stubborn silence right up until he accepts their tray and she smells it. He's bought them both some sort of grilled wraps, still wafting steam, and two bottles of some sort of fancy sparkling water that Rey can barely pronounce the name of. 

When was the last time she had a hot meal? 

Rey’s brows scrunch up and she practically whimpers as spit pools in her mouth and her stomach rumbles. She’s always been so good at handling deprivation. Why does he have to ruin it for her by offering her  _ more _ ? 

It’s going to suck so much when she has to go back to plain peanut butter sandwiches after this. 

It’s only when she realizes that he’s leading her away from her normal table where she sits with Finn, Poe, and Rose that Rey digs in her heels. “I’m not sitting with you,” she says and it comes out more hostile than she’d meant. 

Ben stops in his tracks. She expects him to glare at him but he just looks lost and sort of - hurt? 

Rey can deal with angry, mean, cruel Ben Solo. She doesn’t know what to do with this boy and his hangdog eyes. 

“You - you could sit with  _ us _ , though,” she finds herself stammering, despite the fact that she regrets the words in the same instant they pass her tongue. It’s such a bad idea. Poe and Finn are going to be pissed. 

Poe is probably going to trip him. 

Ben’s brows furrow and he looks across the cafeteria. Rey follows his gaze and finds his friends at a table across the way. All of them are staring. She recognizes Hux and Phasma and a dark haired girl that Rey thinks, with absolutely zero jealousy at all thank you, might be Ben’s ex-girlfriend Bazine. 

It’s clear that Ben wants to sit with them. And she can’t even be mad about it since she wants to sit with her friends, too. 

“I’ll… see you after school?” she hazards, trying to appease him, but he just looks more frustrated. It’s not like they have a lot of options. He has his world, she has his, and never the two shall meet. It’s better that way. 

And it’s not like she’d actually  _ wanted _ to eat lunch with him anyway. That would be dumb, since he'd probably just spend the whole time criticizing her table manners anyway. 

Ben finally lets go of her wrist. Without a word, he turns and walks away, taking the food with him. 

And Rey - well, she’d thought herself immune to Ben Solo’s dickery but this hurts. It feels like a punch to the sternum and she stands there, pathetic and alone in the middle of the cafeteria as she watches him walk away. 

He’d offered her food and let her smell it and look forward to it and then taken it away at the last second. She’s not about to follow him and beg him for a portion of the meal  _ he _ bought, either.

It’s the kind of betrayal she doesn’t think she can forgive. 

She’s beyond crying, at least. This is the kind of hurt that settles into an icy, resigned numbness. What did she expect? She turns and makes a beeline towards her friends, uncaring when she shoulder checks several people along the way. 

Rey tosses down her bag and sits next to Rose. There’s only four of them and the rest of the table is empty so at least Rey doesn’t have to worry about having a front row audience to her impending breakdown. 

Finn frowns at the empty space in front of her. “Aren’t you hungry?” 

“No.” 

Her voice cracks. Rose and Finn share a look and they’re obviously about to question her when Poe suddenly stiffens and glares at something over Rey’s head. 

“What do you want?” Poe snaps in a tone that has Rey’s spine straightening. There can only be one person he’d talk to like that and the tugging in her chest is so close… She doesn’t let herself turn around because that stupid, stupid spark of hope is back. 

“To sit with my soulmate,” Ben Solo mutters, close enough that she can feel his breath against the top of her head. The chair next to her moves and then gives an awful plastic groan as he drops his giant self into it. “Obviously.” 

All around the table, more chairs drag across the floor. Rey recognizes Hux and Phasma and Bazine, plus another mousy, nervous looking boy at the end. 

A plate of food is shoved in front of Rey and she can only stare at it, mute. 

What the fuck. 

Her neck feels creaky and tight with stress when she finally turns her head to look at Ben directly. He’s staring right at her, his cheeks flushed pink and his leg jogging under the table.

“Isn’t this cozy,” Phasma drawls in an Imperial accent very similar to Rey’s own. Her cold blue eyes examine everyone at the table with a cutting edge but she doesn’t sound _completely_ unfriendly. Only mostly. 

“What the hell?” Poe asks at large, though Rey flinches when his glare lands more specifically on her. “Who said you guys were invited?” 

Ben, insolent and terrible and truly, truly the worst, shrugs and leans back in his seat and makes a show of sprawling out. His arm finds the back of Rey’s chair and, out of sight of the rest of the table, he twirls the ends of her hair around his finger. 

“Rey wanted to sit with you and I wanted to sit with Rey,” he says easily, as if he hadn’t just shoved Finn and Poe into a locker two days previous. 

Poe sputters and looks at Rey as if she’s going to do something about all this but Rey is a little too busy being stunned that Ben  _ chose her _ . He’d gone and dragged his friends over to sit with her despite knowing that none of them got along because he’d wanted to sit with  _ her _ . He’d come back. 

“I think it’s sweet,” Rose says and Poe jumps, as if one size six shoe just kicked him directly in the shin. “It’ll be nice to have everyone get along.” 

“I don’t know about all  _ that _ ,” Hux says and Rey hasn’t heard so many familiar accents since leaving Jakku. The ginger boy has a pinched look about his face that gives the impression that he’s always smelling something terrible. “If it’s all the same, I’d still rather not be associated with the lot of you.” 

Rey honestly cannot believe he’s a real, breathing teenage boy talking like that. He sounds like a vampire. Incredible. 

While the rest of the table bickers, Rey risks another glance at Ben. He’s still watching her, amber eyes intent as they move over every inch of her face. Uncomfortable, Rey lifts the chicken wrap he’d bought for her and stuffs an obscenely large bite in her mouth. 

She moans. Actually moans. 

The table goes quiet and Rey knows without a doubt that her face has turned siren red. It’s just been so long since she’s eaten real food. Real chicken. And  _ veggies _ . Oh, god. 

Ben clears his throat and he’s blushing, too. His eyes are dark, pupils dilated. “Remind me to feed you more often,” he says in a raspy undertone. When he realizes the rest of the table is staring at them, his head whips around. “Shouldn’t you all be eating? Fuck off.” 

After that, Rey is very careful to control herself, even if the food is amazing. Soon enough, everyone else has tucked into their own meals, though she catches Ben glancing at her repeatedly. 

The two friend groups mostly chat amongst themselves, creating an invisible line in the sand over which neither side is particularly eager to cross. Still, it’s more amiable than Rey would have expected.

She practically inhales her wrap in world record time. Next to her, Ben is barely halfway through his own meal but he pauses and leans over to whisper in her ear. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me tonight?”

Rey opens her mouth with a sharp retort at the tip of her tongue but pauses and swallows it back. A hot meal, she’s finding, has made her significantly more amenable to - well, basically everything. 

“I can’t,” she says and she’s surprised to find that she actually sounds regretful. That she actually  _ feels _ regretful. She doesn’t know what to do with that revelation. “You know I have to work.” 

She can tell that Ben wants to argue. She doesn’t need a soulmate bond to tell her that much, not when his mouth compresses and his nostrils flare. But all he says is, “Okay.” 

Okay?  _ Okay? _

Rey knows she’s blinking at him as if he’s just sprouted a set of impressive tentacles. Is this a pod person? A clone? 

“Okay,” she parrots cautiously. Then, more slowly, “Maybe next time? I can - lie to Plutt. Or something.” 

Ben looks at her and Rey thinks that if he  _ keeps _ looking at her like that, there isn’t much she wouldn’t forgive him for. Stupid boy with his stupid, dangerous smile. And those eyes. It isn’t fair. 

“Next time,” he says, and it sounds like a promise.


End file.
